


A senior year for the record books.

by cxn



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cliche, Enemies to Lovers, Firsts, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Romance, Teen Romance, Teenagers, gonna be cheesy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-06-27 19:32:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15691950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cxn/pseuds/cxn
Summary: It’s about embracing the fact that you’re a total mess with no sense of where your life is going. Senior year isn’t about the grades you get or the amount of tests you fail. It’s about making sure you have a senior year for the record books.[an svt highschool!au full of teen angst, romance, firsts, and every cliche you hate to love]





	1. 001

**Author's Note:**

> [fic playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/frida.morales/playlist/3D9STTWDB8LboHLnihm0Zh?si=d2Kw6g_uRWuRObmepecs4Q)

“We didn’t even get to play one of those ice breaker games!”

“Yeah Minghao, because the whole class isn’t aware that we’re losers and they need to be reminded.”

“Oh come on, at least pretend to be happy! It’s our last first day, that’s kinda cathartic!” Mingyu only has it in him to sigh. To sigh and pray that this year really stacks up to be better than those that have led up to it.

Minghao and Mingyu are the runt of the bunch. Always have been, and seemingly always will be. It’s senior year, and people have already whispered about them when they walked into their first class.

There’s no good reason for them to be singled out and picked on. Then again, when is there ever? When someone walks into Minghao and he apologises anyway, do his books really deserve to be thrown to the floor? And does Mingyu really deserve the ‘teacher’s pet’ written on his desk every maths lesson?

Different cliques would give you different answers. No matter what the two friends do to redeem themselves, they manage to make it backfire them even further into loser-ness. Like the time Minghao brought red licorice to the excursion and Mina threw up all over the bus. How was he to know! He only meant well, only meant to make everyone happy, make them like him.

Mingyu always had the same response for Minghao, the same words to wipe away tears; “I told you so.” And in all fairness, he had. Ever the pessimist, it hadn’t taken him very long to give up on reclaiming some sort of respect within the social hierarchy. It was clear to him this would just be some strange constant of the universe: Minghao and Mingyu, forever losers.

“This is the only day a year I bother to pack lunch, get excited!” Minghao’s locker is dangerous territory and has been for a long time now. Joshua Hong is in his homeroom which by itself is not a huge deal. I mean, of all the assholes at school, Hong is what one could call a chaotic neutral. Not an asshole by nature but wouldn’t hesitate to trip you at the cafeteria. From there comes Jeonghan, a person most likely collecting royalties for being the muse for Sour Patch kids. Except an inverse Sour Patch kid. His pretty bleach blonde hair and sunshine smile could fool pretty much anybody into buying his goody-two-shoes act. Anyone who knew him beyond surface level could tell you he was a true dick, the truest and purest of evils within. Seemingly put on this earth to step on flowers and watch others burn. Which he was known to do. And after him, there’s Junhui.

Junhui is, well, Junhui. And the likelyhood of these two horsemen of the apocalypse coming to Joshua’s locker with him is extremely high.

Dangerous territory. But Minghao has lunch packed today, so Mingyu finds it in him to swallow down the anxiety and go with him. He reaches into his locker and takes out a ziplock baggie with two cinnamon donuts.

“Hao, don’t you eat those when you get home from school anyway?” Making sure to close the locker as quietly as possible and scramble the lock again (even though the whole school must know his combo by now) the two friends make their way to the cafeteria.

“Yeah but, I wanted to bring something! Last first day, y’know?”

“When are you gonna stop with that last first day shit?”

“Mingyu, do you want the other cinnamon donut or not?” With both their minds set on the sugary carbs, the two friends walk into the cafeteria. Not to sit or anything, god, they could never. Mingyu lines up to buy some jello that probably tastes like a melted barbie doll. He’ll probably get the same jello thrown at him sometime between this recess period. Soonyoung finds Minghao within the sea of students, and then there were three. They huddle together in hopes of making it to the exit in one piece and to their surprise, they do.

You’re not meant to sit in the back alley of the school. There are plenty of teachers crying/smoking/fucking other teachers in their cars, just waiting to catch you and get off to the memory of yelling at a student later. They cut this group some slack. They don’t do much else to stop the bullying that they endure, so letting the loser club sit next to the dumpsters probably makes them feel like some off-brand good samaritan. Which they’re not. But this is the reason the friends have a good chance of going a day without getting food on their shirts, so they take it. A silent agreement from both parties.

“What do you have next?” Soonyoung mouths through his muesli bar.

“Design.” Both boys pipe up from beside him, happy to be eating their recess in peace.

“Sucks. Jeonghan is in that class.” Mingyu and Minghao audibly groan, going far enough to throw their heads back and twists their bodies to communicate the displeasure of these words.

“-and Junhui’s in chem, so I’m good.” He flashes them an eye smile from behind his food, unable to hide how funny this whole ordeal is to him, lucky enough to have a peaceful class next.

“I heard Wonwoo'ss in chem. Gyu’s fucked.” Mingyu stares at his two friends with pity on his face, but the other two can do nothing but laugh, holding their stomachs with the stitches of terrible luck.

“Royally, Soonyoung. He’s royally fucked.” Soonyoung snorts at Minghao’s comment, which only makes Mingyu burst into laughter even though it's at his own expense, and now there’s three teenage boys laughing about their misfortunes behind the school dumpster. Loser club, all present and accounted for, happy as ever.

* * *

Jimin sits at their designated spot in the art rooms, right next to the teacher where no one wants to sit. The rest of the students trickle in one by one, and sure enough, in comes Jeonghan. And right next to him is Joshua. All things considered, it could be a lot worse. Jimin substitutes a greeting for a smile and the two boys give him one back, Minghao’s genuine and Mingyu’s not so much.

“How was your summer?” The blonde haired boy asks, eyes never breaking from the flowers he’s started to doodle at the edge of his sketchbook. Minghao sits between Mingyu and Jimin and all three turn to stare when Jeonghan’s group burts out in hilarious laughter. They all silently try to convince themselves it’s not about them, but more often than not it is.

They just seem so happy. So lost in their world of expensive haircuts and so much attention. Happy.

The teacher gives them ‘free will’ to draw whatever they want so she can assess their art styles and interests, or whatever else she made up on the spot to get out of planning a lesson. This means absolute free reign for the students. Jeonghan’s group whoops and cheers in absolute joy while Prince Joshua gifts the world one of his angel smiles. Jimin, Minghao, and Mingyu share smiles, and the whole class collectively bursts into loud chatter.

“I finally got around to starting Haikyuu. I can’t believe I waited all that time to watch it! Man, I’ve been missing out.” Mingyu and Jimin exchange looks of judgement while Minghao embarks on yet another of his weeb rants. Jimin smiles along anyway, returning to his doodling soon enough.

“I hit 500k on twitch, but only because I streamed every night until the asscrack of dawn.”

“Mingyu, that’s amazing!” Jimin leans forward onto his elbows, letting the squish of his cheeks pool into his palms as his head falls into his hands.

“Yeah, but those numbers are gonna be hard to keep up now, with school and everything.”

“This is why you’ve gotta pick easy subjects, Gyu.” Minghao’s pencil finally hits paper, starting to outline a face. The room lulls into comfortable chatter, everyone content to sit and talk to their well established groups. Everyone has someone in senior year, even the losers find each other.

He chuckles a little at the idea of choosing subjects like music and tourism to make his year as painless as possible. ‘I gotta put in the hard yards if I want this streaming bullshit to work out. Like, my social blade has been looking good but it’s still scary, y’know? If I wanna make a career out of this I have to really start trying this year. Hence me looking like I died this morning. That’s what two hours of sleep’ll do to you.”

“Two hours Mingyu! You’re crazy.” Laughs Jimin.

“Wow, ‘social blade’. We love a social influencer!” This earns Minghao a smack from Mingyu, the younger laughing with Jimin and Mingyu left to pout by his lonesome.

“Shut up Minghao, you don’t even watch my streams!”

“Liar, yes I do!”

“We all know you’re too busy on kissanime Hao, don’t even start.” Jimin smiles, his focus still on the sketchbook beneath him and the two friends left to marvel at his roast.

They finally look back down to the sketchbooks beneath them. Their art teacher is a blessing or a curse, depending on if you like to actually do work in class or not. She doesn’t bat an eye when headphones go in, and Minghao’s head starts bopping to Twice instantly. But only their Japanese releases. You know, good for his dictation or whatever.

He gets to work on his freehand sketch of Kenma. He focuses in on drawing, something that’s always calmed him. It serves as a nice little break to his day, a moment in time just for him.

Mingyu isn’t feeling particularly picky, or edgy, or anything at all. Tired, if anything. Modern Baseball feels like a good pick right now and he lets any old song play as background music while he tries to decide what might convince the design teacher he took this subject for a valid option and not just to be with Minghao.

It’s part of his image to be dressed ‘well’, or as well as a broke 17 year old boy can dress. So it’s clothes he starts to sketch onto his blank paper. It looks absolutely terrible, and he’s aware. A peek over at Minghao and Jimin’s pages confirms this. How his friends can manage to pull picassos out of their asses will never fail to impress him.

New page.

He flips the book over. This time he waits a little, waits for the inspiration to hit him. After 3 Modern Baseball songs, it becomes clear to him that things are really not going to go the way he wants them to.

Minghao reaches over and in one swift movement scribbles onto his page:

_you suck at this lol_

Without missing a beat, Mingyu scribbles right back:

_whos fault is it that im here in the first place?_

At this both friends make eye contact and snicker, returning to their own books once again. He settles on the clothes again, but this time he goes for something a little more geometric and, uh, easy. By the end of the lesson he has a few designs for long, boxy coats that would probably look horrible on him, but he doesn’t dwell on that thought too much. The class exits the same way they came in; agonizingly slow and surprisingly loud.

“What do you guys have?” Jimin manages to shout over the seemingly million other students surrounding them.

“English.” The two reply back in sync, catching the crestfallen look that falls over Jimin when he realises they won’t share the next class.

“Hey, Jeonghan!” Somehow, as if by dark magic, one voice can be heard above the rest, calling out to the sea of students swimming through the halls. Junhui makes his way through the people, everyone parting like the red sea to unite the two best friends. Junhui and Jeonghan give eachother the full details of their classes, Jeonghan no doubt complaining about being stuck with Loser Club in art and Junhui venting about being stuck with all the teachers pets in Chem. Jaehyun says his goodbyes to the other two and goes to his own class, leaving Jeonghan and Junhui on their own, making their way to the next class. Together, apparently.

Mingyu and Minghao turn into their classroom, Mingyu rolling his eyes when he hears people mutter about them as soon as they enter the room.

“Oh my god…” Jeonghan turns into Junhui’s shoulder to hide his face, pretending that he feels bad for laughing as soon as his eyes fall on the two sitting at the front desks.

“Han, shut up! Shouldn’t the student council leader show a little pity?” Junhui joins him in laughing and they make their way to the back corner of the room, the desks no one dares to steal from them.

“God, I am not excited for this class.” Mingyu groans as he leans back on his chair, a terrible habit he was never able to kick. All he can do is pray he has a peaceful lesson after lunch, but it’s most likely Junhui will be in his maths class. And it sucks, because as soon as he gets home it’s back to his social media and dming fans back and setting up for his stream and another late night just to get up and do it all again. It’s not much to ask for one second of peace during his day, but having every single lesson with at least one of the assholes and sitting next to the dumpster trying to ignore the smell is not necessarily ‘peace’.

“Hi class-” their room drops in volume as their clearly new teacher walks in, pages falling out of binders and coffee about to fall from his grip. “To start us off, I want you to write for 5 minutes about your summer!” The room audibly groans, so much so that the walls may have shaken from the sound. All the sub can do is smile, but you can see the fear behind his eyes. Jeonghan can probably smell it on him too.

* * *

“Buy me lunch?”

“Go ask someone else.”

“You suck. You’re richer than me, Gyu! Feed me with that internet money!”

Mingyu decides that the amount of work he puts into his streams should most definitely not be wasted on Kwon Soonyoung’s school lunch, which is probably 2% chicken and 98% flesh of murder victims. Luckily for Mingyu, Soonyoung drops the subject and continues to sulk in his little corner of the dumpsters, eyeing up Mingygu’s food from time to time. Which tastes like absolute ass, and not the good kind (not that Mingyu would know) so it’s more of a favour than anything.

“Somebody just told me I’m gay, which I don’t know about you guys, but that’s a shocker. I mean, it’s not like I get told every day.” Minghao comes blasting through the back door, almost hitting poor Soonyoung right into next week.

“Who said that?” Mingyu asks, out of curiosity more than anything.

“Doesn’t matter.” The two other boys know that to be an obvious lie, considering Minghao came through the door announcing the fact to the entire world. Not like you could do anything anyways, Minghao mutters under his breath to no one in particular. It’s pretty disheartening for Mingyu to see his best friend already so down in the (no pun intended) dumps. Especially considering the attitude he’d had at the start of the day.

* * *

_me:_

_are you streaming rn_

_mingyu:_

_nah but soon_

_why_

_me:_

_nvm_

Minghao gives up and throws his phone down on his bed before flopping into it face down, letting the scent of his sheets that need to be washed and ew when was the last time he washed these swallow him whole. Yeah, Mondays are a weird day to go out, but it’s the first day of his senior year and the only thing he has planned is writing his list of all the non-filler episodes of Naruto. Mingyu is too busy on his twitch hustle these days to even see him, and Soonyoung has an actual life doing dance outside of school. So, Minghao’s social life isn’t exactly what you would call busy.

He can hear that blasting music the neighbours always have on in his room. Not too loud, but he can feel the beat on his walls if he presses his palms against them. He opens his windowsill to get a better listen of the song. He recognises the lyrics and instantly goes to write song suggestions on a piece of paper. It’s this tradition he has with the neighbours, writing eachother music recommendations based on the songs they hear being blasted from each others rooms. He’s not really sure who the neighbours are, but he likes their music and the artists they’ve showed him, so he’s not exactly itching to know. No one really talks to each other on his street anyway, so there’s no big need to interact with them. They only just moved in, so he figures sooner or later he’ll actually meet these people.

He lays back down on his bed (face up this time) and decides to just sit there for a little, and let the dread of the year ahead of him seep into every single inch of his being.

* * *

“It’s a Monday, Jeonghan.”

“Okay, so does that mean you’re not allowed to have fun? What’s your point here?” Junhui paces around his room, one hand on the phone and the other at his forehead, swirling his fingers and making wrinkles like that’ll give him some more patience for this phone call.

“How are you not tired from today?”

“I’ve had like 3 red bulls motherfucker. 4 if you count the one I’m having right now. Don’t be such a grandpa about it!”

“I just don’t understand who even-” He takes a moment to breathe and really think about the situation. “Who wants the entire grade in their house on a Monday? Mondays are the lamest days of the week. Dude, who the fuck wants to go out on a Monday?” He can definitely hear Jeonghan sigh on the other end of the line.

“Seungcheol, that’s who! Look, are you gonna stop being a loser and come, or am I hanging up and telling Jaehyun to be ready in 10?”

“Tell Jaehyun I say hi.”

“Bitch.” And the line goes dead. Junhui dumps his phone on his desk and pulls his things out of his bag, one by one and as slow as possible. He already has an entire assignment due for legal studies, a biology essay and reading for chem. He doesn’t even wanna be a lawyer, or a chemistry person or a biology person. Whatever those are actually called. It’s all so fucking stupid. He probably couldn’t hate it any more if he tried.

There’s not much to Junhui. He’s not particularly talented at anything, not really interested in anything. No goals, dreams or plans. He’s popular, but pertains that this is only because he’s on the football team, which apparently means things to people. He does like his friends, almost all of them, but he’d be perfectly happy to not be the ‘popular’ group. Sometimes he can’t help but roll his eyes at the thought, because he doesn’t care for that title at all. And then it’s like he owes everyone something, and they expect it too, he owes them this treatment like he’s moses leading every single one of them through the red fucking sea or something. And he can’t stand it, not for a second. He can’t stand everyone asking him for stupid fucking favours, or girls saying hi to him and thinking its the highlight of their fucking day. But it’s not really like it’s his choice to just change that as he pleases.

He knows everyone thinks he’s a total asshole. It doesn’t bother him. He won’t cry when he doesn’t win prom king or anything. Fuck that.

It’s not his responsibility to be the popular kid everyone wants him to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know if youre feeling this new fic !


	2. 002

“Stop pining, your gay is showing.”

“Why do you even take this class Soonyoung?”

“Eh. It’s entertaining watching you thirst for someone _that_  emotionally unavailable.”

“He’s not! He’s just-”

“Yeah yeah, quiet, I know.”

Wonwoo is sitting alone as the teacher runs through the course outline, none of his friends anywhere to be seen. Not that it probably bothers him anyway. He’s always in the library, alone and reading. He has friends though, just chooses to spend time alone. Lucky bastard. Jeonghan especially has a very specific liking for him just because they’ve known each other since they were 3 or some bullshit like that. It leaves a bad taste in Mingyu’s mouth to just think about that. 

Nevertheless, he thinks Wonwoo is very cute. And probably has for a while now. That’s about all there is to it. It’s not like they’ve ever spoken, probably once when Mingyu was drunk or something at a party, but never properly. He kind of has no idea what Wonwoo is like, his personality, or things he’s into (apart from books). 

He doesn’t know what exactly it is about this boy, but that’s half the charm. All quiet, brown hair falling over his round glasses and headphones in. Mingyu would bet Wonwoo’s notes look all organised and colour-coded. His worksheets and homework probably don’t end up crumpled at the bottom of his bag like Mingyu’s. But he’s not a nerd or anything, or at least he doesn’t make a point of it. He’s not in astrophysics club or maths club or anything stupid and lame like that, he’s just smart. Actually, Mingyu’s not sure if he’s in any club.

“For real, snap out of it. This class is boring, I need you to play tic tac toe with me or something.” Soonyoung whispers with his head still turned towards the board, pencil tapping a very sporadic rhythm onto his page. 

“Dude, he hasn’t even started teaching yet. You know what, you and I are a bad combination. We’re gonna get nothing done, just like outdoor ed last year.” Soonyoung ducks his head down a little to laugh at the memory of them doing absolutely nothing that entire subject and burning the pasta they cooked on camp. Fantastic memories if you ask him.

“No you know what? English dude. We’re all in that class together, and I’d bet you my life savings that’ll be my worst grade this year.”

“Cool, I’ll make sure to collect my $5 at the end of the year.” Soonyoung laughs way too hard at this and the teacher finally calls them out on being disruptive and awful. Which is honestly quite nice of him to wait until this point, considering they’ve been absolutely annoying for the entirety of the lesson.

Mingyu doesn’t catch it, but Wonwoo peels his eyes away from the board to see what the fuss is about. Mingyu and Soonyoung, quite the pairing. Everyone else in the class rolls their eyes and mutters at the two for being annoying or stupid or whatever it is they’re calling them today. Wonwoo doesn’t really know what separates him from them, seeing as he’s probably more of a loser than they are. With the books and always being alone and the good grades and all that. He’s not complaining though. He figures it’s probably just his friendship with Jeonghan (which Jeonghan has always made sure to put on full blast to the entire school) that saves him from being picked on. Which he isn’t really in the position to be complaining about, because he knows Mingyu and Soonyoung and their other friend get a lot of shit from almost the entire grade. He feels something for them, not pity or sympathy, but just something. He knows he’s one of them, just lucky to have escaped their fate.

Personally, he doesn’t mind them. Of course they’ve never talked, but they seem better than a lot of other people at the school. Soonyoung seems so energetic and talented and so sickeningly happy all the time, Wonwoo can only envy it all. Maybe in another life, in a parallel universe, they _are_ friends, and he is the 4th member of loser club. From his position of privilege, he chooses to believe that maybe alternate-universe Wonwoo is happier than this-universe Wonwoo.

* * *

Minghao has hated Mandarin class since the first time he took it. It’s generally quiet, because no one particularly loud or annoying or exciting has any interest in learning Chinese. It’s always the quiet studious ones that fill the class year after year. They’re the only ones that have it in them to put that much effort into a language. Minghao only takes the class for the straight A’s. And apparently, so does Junhui. He hates Junhui. It’s like he has no filter whatsoever. Minghao could drop a pen and Junhui would make sure the entire room was laughing about it. He can’t wait till the day he never has to see his stupid face again. Just because he’s hot and he’s on the football team, whatever. 

He’s always quiet in this class because none of his friends are here, and there’s no one to laugh at his stupid jokes. Junhui has probably said something awful about every person in this room. If anything, he’s outnumbered here, but still no one has the guts to speak up to him. Speaks a lot to high school dynamics.

If Minghao had any sense of a voice in this school, he’d expose Junhui. The way he behaves in this class is so insanely different. Minghao takes a lot of class time to daydream about things, and sometimes that ‘thing’ just so happens to be Junhui.

I dunno, it’s like, Junhui does a whole 180. But not like, he’s shy or quiet because his friends aren’t here. No, if wanted to be an asshole he could sit with his feet up, leave his headphones in, go on his phone or whatever other rebellious behaviour he has in his repertoire. But no. No, he pays attention, and takes notes (with highlighters and everything), and sits with both feet flat on the floor.

Minghao likes to fantasise about this alter-ego of Junhui’s. Like, he’s Batman or Hannah Montana (he likes to think it’s the latter). At school he’s this popular kid, all nonchalant about everything like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Part of the football team, letterman jacket around his shoulders and smiling as he talks with all his friends like his life is ken-doll perfect, in this league of greatness that none of the regular mortals could ever reach.

But that’s just his day job. Like, a front he puts up for his friends and the school and every pair of eyes that’s on him. But in Minghao’s daydream fantasy, Junhui hates it all. He can’t wait to get home and peel the mask right off, just be himself and not try so hard. He transforms into this calm, relaxed person. Soft spoken, not too outgoing but not shy either. Minghao likes to think that Junhui’s the type to sit and listen to a conversation, paying attention and jumping in at just the right time with just the right thing to say, making everyone laugh. He’s the type of person everyone loves, like the second he walks into a party everybody wants to say hi. Just, nice. Like, he can flash that smile without having to say something shitty about someone to bring it about, and then his laugh means more because there’s nothing ugly attached to it; no nasty words have to have rolled off his tongue before it, and his laugh can just be the pure bubbly sunshine it was always mean to be.

But then the bell goes and Jeonghan is waiting right outside the door for him. They walk with their arms linked and go back to their routine of whisper _, smile, whisper, smile._ Minghao well and truly wakes up from his daydream.

* * *

“You honest to god sound like a Dr.Seuss book. I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, whipped I am!” Minghao laughs along with Soonyoung, and Mingyu is left to take a sad bite of his room temperature burrito. God only knows why he spends his hard-earned twitch coin on school lunches, because they’re always disgusting and he could probably get the same flavour by picking something out of the dumpster next to them.

“I do not need to be here right now. You know, I could be living off my twitch money!” He sees the two other boys snicker a little at this. “Okay, maybe not live, but I could work up to that! Just quit school, leave all you losers behind, how about that!” He’s still smiling through it all, because he will never not love his two friends, even when they’re being exceedingly annoying for absolutely no good reason other than boredom. 

“Yeah but see, you would never, because that would mean no Wonwoo.”

“Oh Hao, you should’ve seen him in psych! All heart eyes for him, couldn’t tell you a word of what the teacher said!”

“Yeah but could you Soonyoung?” It’s interesting that even though they’re the outcasts, shunned by their entire grade, here in their little slice of heaven next to the dumpsters, they couldn’t be happier. Laughing and smiling and just _happy_.

* * *

Jeonghan has been chasing Seungcheol since kindergarten. Literally. There are probably pre-teen Jeonghan diary entires dedicated entirely to his eyes or the way he laughs or something really gay like that.

Seungcheol is the quarterback of the school football team, which makes him both popular and very very crushed on. Jeonghan figures he’s always been pretty clear about his feelings for Seungcheol, and Seungcheol has never really reciprocated anything. So he’s kind of decided that this is the year he needs to get over that and accept that nothing is ever gonna happen.

He hasn’t really given himself a good start. Being captain of the cheer squad and going to Seungcheol’s really weird out-of-nowhere gath thing. Which was really boring apart from watching Jaehyun and Taeyong eye-fuck from opposite sides of the room. He’s about to beat the high score for sudoku on his phone when he catches Seungcheol’s eye as he’s making his way to Jeonghan, slowly weaving through the web of people filling his house.

“I tried to talk Junhui into coming but apparently he hates Mondays. Why Monday anyway?”

“What, I’m not allowed to have fun on Mondays?”

“That’s exactly what I told Junhui!”

Seungcheol takes a seat right next to Jeonghan on the couch he had claimed. There’s nothing particular about the way he’s sitting, but the way he leans back into the couch with his arms spread, one leg cross over the other (but in a manly way) like he owns the place.

(And yes he _does_ technically own t _his specific_ place but it’s more of an energy thing, y’know? This could be anyone’s couch and he would still look just as expensive and authoritative.)

“I’m already dreading tryouts. I get it, like, of course we need new people and give all the freshmen a chance. But like, I like the team right now? And it’s kinda weird to think about one of the newbies we get filling my shoes next year.” Seungcheol has always talked to Jeonghan like there’s nobody but them, confides in him like the room is empty and every one of his thoughts should belong to the both of them. And maybe Seungcheol doesn’t think of it that way at all, doesn’t choose his words to have so much meaning. Maybe he thinks nothing of it at all.

But it still makes Jeonghan all giddy, butterflies in his stomach like he has anything to be anxious about, exactly like the first day they ever met.

“Oh Seungcheol, you know they’ll never replace you. Are you kidding? You’re the best quarterback they’ve ever had, and I don’t know why you even stayed at this school to begin with. I’m just sad it’s senior year and I never managed to convince you to take one of the million scholarships you got offered.” Jeonghan would have given anything for Seungcheol to leave their god-awful school for one of the many that begged for him. That’s not to say he wouldn’t miss Seungcheol, because Jeonghan thinks his chest already hurts enough on the weekends they don’t see eachother, and that’s only two days. But he wants Seungcheol to be successful and happy and appreciated, and if that just happens to be at a different school, Jeonghan would learn to live with that.

“I’m most definitely not the best quarterback we’ve ever had, but thanks. I dunno, it’s a lot of pressure to do well and get scouted for a good university and all that. I can’t believe you’re cheer captain. Not like you don’t deserve it, as in now you _have_ to be at all my games and cheer me on. Do you figure that’s luck, or the man upstairs looking out for me?” Jeonghan laughs into the sleeve of his sweater, turning his head away a little in hopes of concealing how red his cheeks are. He can feel the entire heat of the sun on his face and it’s _awful_. Does Seungcheol do this to embarrass him on purpose, or is he truly clueless as to how much effect he has on Jeonghan?

“If the juniors suck, I’m not gonna be a very happy cheer captain, I’ll tell you that.” The conversation lulls and they’re left to listen to the blasting music coming from somewhere further inside the house. It’s not particularly good or bad, just loud noise to fill in the blanks where conversations drop out. Just background noise to cover up all the discomfort and weird moments.

Sounds a whole lot like the past few years of high school.

“New sweater?” Seungcheol asks, reaching over to run the fabric through his fingers.

“Yeah, it is. Ask me what it’s made of.”

“Boyfriend material?” Seungcheol cracks a smile across his face, big and award-winning and every single good thing under the sun.

“Stop stealing my punchline!” Jeonghan whines, smacking a balled fist against Seungcheol’s chest. Seungcheol starts to laugh and his eyes scrunch up, feigning hurt at the hit and clutching his hands to his chest.

“I’m sorry, Han! You can’t just use the same joke every time!” _Han_. That nickname will never not melt his heart. It always has an effect on him, softens every inch of his being and makes him feel all warm and gooey on the inside. Makes him feel special, like Seungcheol has his own little name for him, like he cares enough to have that.

Jeonghan has been telling that joke since middle school, every time Seungcheol asked about his clothes. The joke itself is pretty lame and cheesy, but it’s become more of an in-joke for them than anything. Sometimes Seungcheol plays along, other times he steals the punchline, but every time it ends in them both laughing.

“Thanks for noticing though.”

“It’s cute.” 

The sweater is a pale blue colour, cable knit and soft to the touch. Jeonghan thinks he might never take it off now.

He knows it’s borderline ridiculous how much Seungcheol affects him. It’s very much like he’s a little schoolgirl completely at his mercy, hanging off every word he has to spare and squealing to her friends when they make eye contact in the halls.

That’s just the way things are, and the way they always have been. As much as it feels like a crush, Jeonghan knows it’s anything but. He’s liked Seungcheol for way too long, and all the cutesy honeymoon phase feelings and just the part of the iceberg you can see. Beneath them there’s a million other things beneath them that make up the way Jeonghan feels about Seungcheol. It’s the eyes and his smile, or the way he always looks around when he goes to a new place to really take it in, like he can save photos in his mind and he wants to have a million. Seungcheol doesn’t like orange juice, because he says he never knows if it’s going to be the bitter or the sweet kind. _I don’t trust it_ , he says. Seungcheol is nice to everybody until proven otherwise. He’s always nice to the juniors and helps anyone who asks. He’s the type to make conversation with a stranger and leave with a friend. There’s something about his soul that’s so calm, serene and content. He’s the type of person that, you just know the spirit that is in them is truly kind and pure and all things lovely.

This year. Jeonghan decided to give up on all that. He’s had a lot of time to seal the deal, and who knows what’s gonna happen next year. Seungcheol will go his way, Jeonghan will go his, and everything is up in the air. There’s no guaranteed future for them, as friends before anything else. He needs to let this stupid crush thing go while he can ease out of it slowly, instead of waiting to be pushed into the deep end once they graduate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another ?? update ?? im sorry im really feeling this au


	3. 003

Junhui has always thought it torutorus to have to sit through double Chinese in the mornings. He has absolutely, _literally_ , no friends in this class. It’s brutal, to just sit there and be talked at.

Everyone in his class is either a nerd or a loser, because nobody outside of those groups would be stupid enough to take this class. He only takes it for the easy A. He assumes the other chinese boy in the class probably does it for the same reason. His name is Minghao. They went to the same primary school together and he’s always been a loser, right up to senior year.  
Junhui doesn’t really have anything particular against him, just isn’t particularly fond of his loser ways. He’s fun to joke about anyway, gives his friends something to talk about.  
The teacher announces their new assignment, and Junhui comes down to earth from his daydream. It’s partner work. Fuck. Last year, his neighbour was in this class too, so they would always work together. Now he doesn’t take the class and they aren’t neighbours anymore.

Junhui spins in his chair from his seat at the front of the room and scans the class. All the people are from the same-ish cliques, so they flock together and link hands and arms and all that bullshit to ‘claim’ each other. The stragglers that are left behind lock eyes and kind of shrug their shoulders in a way that says _‘eh, you’re the best I’ve got’_ and they partner up. The crowds seem to dissipate into corners of the room and finally, Junhui spots the only person left; sitting on his own, looking down at his book and tapping the rhythm of the song playing through his headphones on the desk: Xu Minghao.

_(is that even his last name?)_

Junhui doesn’t really want to be the one to have to get up and approach him. Y’know, social hierarchy and all that. But he also feels like its likely Minghao hasn’t heard a word of the whole lesson, so he might just bite the bullet.

* * *

Minghao knows he’s asked for the world to open up and swallow him whole many times, but right now in particular would be absolutely fucking splendid. Why, oh why do they have to do partner work? In a class he has 0 friends in. Well versed in how to get out of every single social interaction ever, he chooses to look straight down at the desk and leave his headphones in, even though there’s absolutely no sound coming out of them. All he can hear is his heartbeat slamming against every inch of his skin. He taps his pencil and bounces his leg wildly and he thinks he’s starting to nervous sweat. No one’s gonna pick him, no one wants him, hopefully the teacher will take some pity on the poor mess of a boy sat at the back of the class and let him work alone. Even the nerds, so close to rock bottom on the social hierarchy, don’t want to be within a meter of Minghao.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a pair of legs working their way towards him. Or, well, they could be going to someone else. Or getting something from the back of the class.

He keeps his head down.

They come to a stop right in front of his desk, legs relaxed and arms crossed over their chest. Black skinny jeans cling to every inch of muscle beneath them and Minghao is so unsure of what to even do about this ambush that he stays like that, frozen.

“Loser.” The person calls from above him, kicking at the leg of his desk and sending him coiling back. They finally lock eyes.

Junhui stares back like he’s pissed off to even be looking at Minghao, let alone be standing before his desk. It’s a cold look, hard to read but easy to be scared of. Minghao still doesn’t say a word, way too confused as to why Junhui is standing at _his_ desk. He hasn’t directly spoken to Junhui since primary school (and probably not even then). He’s usually just being talked _at_ , being called names and being told about just how awful he really really is. Not that it really gets to him annymore, but it’s still strange to even think about the prospect of having a conversation with Wen Junhui. Now he kicks the desk harder, sending it scuffing across the linoleum floor and silencing the room.

“Do you talk?” Junhui’s eyebrows raise and he pulls his arms impossibly tighter around his chest. His lettermans jacket hangs off his shoulders, fabric bunched where his arms are.  
Minghao calms himself a little, to make sure he shows Junhui just how wrong he is about everything he calls Minghao. Not that Minghao really has anything to prove to Junhui, or Jeonghan, or Joshua, or anyone really. He’s not sure why coming across like a normal, or even cool person matters to him in this very moment, but the fact of the matter is it does. So he wipes the scared puppy look from his face and takes his metaphorical tail out from between his legs, leaning back into the chair and crossing a leg across his lap, all masculine and manly and macho and all that.

He pulls a headphone out of his ear, just one.

“Sorry, what?” Junhui looks absolutely taken aback, eyes squinting and fists balling up the fabric they can reach. He turns around and waves an arm frantically in the air, until the teacher sees him at which point he yells across the room:

“Miss, can I please work alone?” She doesn’t consider it for even a second.

“Oh but Junhui, you have Minghao right here! He’s a high-achieving student, and as the only two native speakers in the class I think it’s a great idea for you to work together!” Junhui seems to consider it, tilting his head and weighing up pros and cons in his head. Or so it seems to Minghao.

Really, he’s adding #116 to his list of “How to kill a loser”, which he’s actually quite proud of. It got hard to be original after the 70 mark.

“Do you boys have a problem with that?” Minghao can tell Junhui is about to interject, tell the teacher he’s scared to catch gay germs from Minghao and beg to work alone. His arms twitch in the temptation of movement and Minghao knows it’s very much now or never. He doesn’t know what exactly courses through his veins in this moment. It tastes something like confidence, and Minghao thinks he just might get addicted.

“No miss, I would love that! You’re right, I think Junhui and I will work well together.” He tops it off with a big bright smile (eye scrunch and everything) and the teacher returns the exact smile back, clearly pleased to not have to change her original plan or accommodate for difficult students. She claps her hands before her.

“Great! Well, I can’t wait to see what you two come up with!” She turns on her heels and returns to her desk, very smartly leaving the scene before it gets messy between the two boys.

“What the fuck? What the fuck was that for?” Junhui spits down at Minghao. Towering above the younger boy sitting in his chair, Minghao should probably be fearing for his life.  
He doesn’t say anything and it’s the tip of the iceberg for Junhui. He grunts angrily at the boy and turns to storm out of the class, letting the door slam behind him.

* * *

“Mingyu, you’re not gonna believe-“ Soonyoung comes bursting out to the back of the school, arm linked with a very happy Xu Minghao. Mingyu stands up from where he was sitting with his head in his hands and shoves Minghao back towards the door. His back hits it, not hard but hard enough to scare him. Never has Mingyu done anything like this to him.

“Woah woah woah, what the fuck Mingyu? What the fuck?” Soonyoung is quick to step between them, pushing his forearm against Mingyu’s chest to keep him at bay.

“I heard fucking everything, Minghao. You idiot, what the hell is wrong with you? Junhui gave me hell the whole lesson, and it’s only gonna get worse, because of you! Because you couldn’t keep your mouth closed, you couldn’t just behave, and now we’re all gonna go through hell and back before the semester is over! Because of you!”

Minghao is in a state of shock. Mingyu has never screamed him like this, and he doesn’t know what to think or feel about it at all. He’s just numb, frozen, mouth open and catching flies.

“Mingyu, are you gonna live your whole life being scared of those idiots? Letting them step all over you, flying under the radar and never talking back, for what? To keep the peace? They have treated us worse than shit on a sidewalk since the first day we got here, and it’s taken us too many fucking years to stand up to them. Don’t you dare make Minghao feel bad about this. He could’ve got his ass kicked, then and there, but he stood up for himself and me and you-“ Soonyoung pokes an accusatory finger in the middle of Mingyu’s chest “you fucking asshole, he stood up for us all. Don’t you dare make him feel bad for it.”

The rest of their lunch period crawls by. Mingyu sulking about Minghao being an idiot, Soonyoung sitting between his two friends, a hero and an asshole, and Minghao left to wander through the thoughts in his head, good mood completely ruined.

All 3 would agree that his was the slowest lunch period of their entire high school career.

* * *

Soonyoung has never been more grateful to have friends outside of school. For the first time in a while the other 2/3 of his friend group aren’t exactly getting along, which leaves him searching in other places for some sort of social life on this fine Tuesday afternoon. He and Chan are at the same dance studio and the other two boys, Vernon and Seungkwan, are Chan’s friends from his school. As much as Seungkwan complained that he can’t rollerskate _(“I’m gonna fall over and embarrass myself, is that what you all want?”)_ , the four friends had ended up at the roller rink. Vernon was out with Seungkwan, holding his hand or _”linking arms”_ as the hets would say, to help him not fall on his ass. Chan and Soonyoung were taking a time out, slurping on some much-too-expensive slushies.

“Are you nervous about the showcase?” Chan asked, barely looking away from his cup. Their dance studio always had semester showcases, but this one was especially important to Soonyoung. This would be his first showcase in his senior year, making it more important than ever to impress all the representatives from potential universities and get scouted.

“I’m gonna shit my pants right before I go on stage. Just you wait.”

“No you won’t, hyung. You never have, and you only have a couple left, so you probably won’t. Just practise like you always have, you’ll get Best in Show again.” Chan always knew exactly what to say. Coming off rehearsal, Soonyoung had put his headphones right in and shoved his bag over his shoulder, pacing it back to his car without a word to anyone else. Who could blame him for being stressed about his performance? There was a lot riding on it. His entire future, pretty much.

Chan felt a little bit responsible to do something about it. Soonyoung had always been there for him and treated him like a little brother, but sometimes Soonyoung needed someone to look out for him too. Seeing as he probably didn’t tell his school friends about dance problems, it kinda fell onto Chan’s shoulders.

To absolutely no-one’s surprise, Vernon and Seungkwan were already together, and with Vernon’s promise to teach Seungkwan, the four friends were at the roller rink.

For someone who’s at the top of every one of their classes, Seungkwan could be such an idiot when he wanted to be. Vernon held his hand as they did laps of the rink, his touch feather-light. Seungkwan was a quick learner. He’d gotten the hang of this skating thing about half an hour ago. But he didn’t want to let go of Vernon’s hand. I mean, how much harm was he really doing? And this type of opportunity comes once in a blue moon. Maybe it’s bad of him to take advantage of the situation, and Vernon, but it’s not like he does this everyday. Well, he would if he could, but you get the idea.

He’s adored Vernon ever since he transferred to their school. Vernon was the pretty American kid who looked like that really hot actor from the boat movie, and _everyone_ wanted a piece of him. Seungkwan took no time at all, jumping on the opportunity during their first shared class and introducing himself in awful english. Vernon giggled a little (yes that’s right, _giggled_ ) and told Seungkwan his name, as if the whole school didn’t already know.

It was unfair really, how little it took. From that very moment, Seungkwan was gone. The more time he spent with Vernon, the more reasons he found to love him.

Ok, maybe not love, love is a strong word. Not love. _Like_.

But anyway, Vernon isn’t interested _at all_ and who can blame him when the entire female population of their school brought him chocolates on valentines day. They’re best friends, and Seungkwan thinks he can live with that if it means getting to steal moments like these every once in a while.

“And I mean, this new dude seems nice and everything, but I’ve had the same music teacher since I started at this school.” Vernon looks over and pinches Seungkwan right out of his daydream, making direct eye contact and flashing him a pretty smile. Seungkwan never really knows exactly what to say or do when Vernon does stupid things like this. Stupid little things that make Seungkwan’s stomach flutter.

“Were you even listening?” Vernon asks, his smile not even faltering. How could he not be mad at Seungkwan for being so rude? Vernon never ever gets mad, not even when Seungkwan spilled red kool-aid on his floor back when they first met.

“No, sorry. I’m trying not to die here.”

“You’re doing great! Are you sure you’ve never done this before?” Vernon is just as happy to do laps of the rink with Seungkwan, guiding him, sometimes silent and sometimes speaking. It doesn’t really matter if Seungkwan isn’t listening. He’s there to hear him, and Vernon thinks that’s what counts most.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!!!! it's been a little while, im sorry :'(  
> let me know what you think !!!!


	4. 004

Mingyu seems normal during homeroom, Soonyoung thinks. Tired as always, but normal. Hopefully totally over the debauchery of yesterday. He’s a big man, and Soonyoung thinks highly enough of him to believe that he’s thoroughly over it, and Junhui does usually give them a get-out-of-jail-free card during homeroom. He’s got Jeonghan with him anyway.

Junhui and Jeonghan sit across the room, Jeonghan playing his role as an absolutely stellar best friend and just letting Junhui whine about his next lesson; Chinese. Again. The timetabling gods must have something against him.

“Well, I’ve got tryouts at lunch if you wanna come and bitch about all the new kids.” Jeonghan suggests, this dreaded day finally upon him. He’s so looking forward to their next practise with the football team, which shouldn’t excite him as much as it does but he hasn’t seen Seungcheol all hot and sweaty in what feels like a million years, and the man _never_ posts on his ig, so Jeonghan is thoroughly starved of content. Give the man a break, ok? He’s only got one more year left to enjoy this football player boyfriend fantasy he’s made for himself and you better believe he’s going to savour every last drop. The bell rings and the class scampers off to their first lesson, Junhui lagging behind them all in dread of what he already knows is coming. 

* * *

Minghao is so nervous he’s tempted to just shove his whole fist in his mouth as an attempt to calm this bitch of a storm. Mingyu had been especially quiet in design yesterday afternoon, which only led to Minghao being angsty for the rest of the day and blasting music a million times too loud. He was definitely feeling the emotional hangover from their fight, and now he’d have to face Junhui _again,_ which he was not in the mood for at all. Not in the mood he was yesterday to be all rebellious and annoying and definitely not in the mood to cop everything Junhui was sure to throw his way.

He’d had a phase of rebellion, just a little taste, and he was ready to spit it right back out. He hadn’t felt this scared of Junhui in years.

In he walks, Minghao barely catching his toned legs out of the corner of his eye. Everyone’s sat with their partners and Junhui is one of the last people to come in, leaving him no choice but to sit next to Minghao. Minghao thinks he’s never breathed this quickly in his life and to be very very honest he might just pass out.

Junhui doesn’t say a word. He’s still mad. Minghao can tell because his leg is bouncing impatiently up and down under the desk, which he never ever does. Not even when they have a test.

The teacher barely gives an instruction, leaving the pairs to work on their own. For a full 80 minutes. Needless to say, both Minghao and Junhui are ecstatic.

“I’m so-”

“You-”

Of course _nothing_ can go right for Minghao during this interaction. The two start to talk at the same time, Minghao instantly closing his mouth and becoming extremely self aware of himself. He feels bad, like he stepped on Junhui’s toes or something, even though they kind of stepped on each others metaphorical toes. But Junhui looks just as taken aback, which takes Minghao even more aback, and he’s not sure how much further back he can go.

“You first.’ Minghao almost whispers, shy to mis-step and fuck the situation up further. Junhui takes a second to compose himself, gather his confidence from that little hitch on the road and come across as totally scary and intimidating.

“You better watch yourself. I d-don’t want any issues with this assignment.” Minghao definitely feels like he’s being scolded, words and tone all right. It’s the delivery that breaks the facade, and maybe it’s the way he stares into Junhui’s eyes and absolutely demands their eyes stay trained to each other, or how he sits criss-cross applesauce on his chair like it’s not really strangely endearing or the sweater vest and beret combo he has on that should probably be awful but somehow isn’t.

Junhui doesn’t stutter often. He’s searching for any reason as to why now of all times, he’s nervous.

“Oh, we won’t. Don’t worry. I just wanted to um, work together.” Minghao has no idea what else he’s supposed to say, because he’s not gonna tell Junhui he was feeling extra cunt-y yesterday and therefore decided to stick it to him. He’s not really sure which story would’ve been worse, this one just makes him sound weird, or creepy, or like he has a crush on Junhui. Which he certainly does not.

Junhui doesn’t really know what to say. He’s a little weirded out, not only by Minghao wanting to work with him but this whole interaction really. He hasn’t spoken properly to Minghao in straight up _years, _which is an exceptionally long time. It’s weird now where they’re both so vulnerable without their other friends to back them up, having a normal conversation like a normal people.__

__It sends a bit of guilt to the bottom of Junhui’s stomach, for being mildly awful to Minghao all the time. For no good reason, really. He’s kind of just like, another person. Not much different to his other friends, or the other people he doesn’t pick on._ _

__Senior year might be a bit late to be having these revelations. At least he’s having them._ _

* * *

____  
Jeonghan wishes he was dead. Well, not really, but right now in this moment he couldn’t think of anything better.

He’s probably just getting older, but the new kids that come through the school every year just seem to get younger and younger and younger. He’s convinced some of them just came from grade 3. Can they read yet?

Junhui waltzes over to him, radiating melanin and attraction. All the freshmen swoon. Jeonghan rolls his eyes into the back of his head. Though not the quarterback, surely one of the school’s star football players being present is some incentive for the recruits to actually try.

“Am I late?” Junhui asks, jogging the final stretch to reach Jeonghan’s side.

“Just on time. Can you promise to try to keep me sane? This is gonna be the hardest lunch period _ever_ ”. Junhui gives him a smile and before Jeonghan can snap at the gasps he hears from the girls who’ve just seen Junhui’s pearly whites for the first time, he turns around and starts the try-outs.

Nothing fancy. Need spirit, blah blah blah, school values, blah blah blah. The usual word vomit. They pair off with the other girls from the team and work on a routine. Now all Jeonghan has to do is judge. The teachers trust him enough to call the shots all on his own. How sweetly naive of them. It’s probably the long hair; it makes people think he’s sugar spice and everything nice.

Which honestly, he kind of is. Or at least he’d like to think so.

“When’s the first game again? Junhui asks, arms crossed over his chest, letterman’s jacket proudly on display. 

“Soon-ish. Couple weeks. The entire team is shitting themselves, with the new kids and everything. They’re already calculating their chances of winning with the maths kids and coach yells at them every practise. Seriously, the stress they’re under is homophobic. ” Jeonghan talks absentmindedly as they walk around the small groups that have formed, watching some girls slip from their pyramid or others tumble around like they’ve been doing it since birth.

For someone who isn’t actually _in_ the football team, he’s very invested in it all. Probably just because it’s Seungcheol’s life, and he likes cheering him on and all that. Not just literally because he’s in the cheer team, but he likes supporting him. All that.

“Thoughts?” Junhui breaks Jeonghan out of his daydream, eyes trained on the candidates.

“Well, there’s talent there. For sure. Wait for them to start doing cartwheels, then we’ll talk.” Jeonghan breaks a smile and Junhui joins him, the two linking arms as they keep walking.

“You busy after school?” Junhui asks as one of the other girls on the team starts teaching the candidates one of the school’s cheers. 

“I was gonna ask you that! Wanna get boba?”Jeonghan notes his invitation with a little push to Junhui’s side (who has been training intensely and doesn’t even budge. At all.)

“I mean, I should probably be responsible and do my law-”

“Junhui, it’s senior year! Would you-”

“Jeonghan, let me finish! I probably _should_ do my law, but practise starts next week so I may as well just make the most of this free time.” Junhui smiles, looking as the joy starts to spread on Jeonghan’s face.

“Yay! My social life says thank you!”

Junhui truly does love Jeonghan. He’s a good friend and a pure soul, even if he doesn’t come across like that to other people. It doesn’t really matter to Junhui. 

* * *

Things were awful quiet at loser club today. Soonyoung didn’t really say much to Mingyu during psychology either.

Mingyu is way too sleep deprived to even remember to breathe, let alone think of a solid way to mend the only friendships he currently has. But he knows Minghao will forgive him, just like he’s forgiven Minghao countless times before. All is okay.

Wednesdays may just be his favourite day. Ending the day with IT just sets him up to be in a good mood for his stream later on. Sure, he doesn’t have any friends in this class but none of Junhui’s posse is here either, so it’s reasonably peaceful. The weather is only a little bit cold and not so much so that he’s shivering.

It’s been a pleasant afternoon for Mingyu.

Most importantly, Wonwoo is in this class. Sure, they had psych together before, but Soonyoung was there and there was just a lot going on. Overstimulation, if you will. Mingyu’s early from lunch to his class and he’s one of the first, making sure to keep his headphones in and avoid small talk with his teacher. 

Maybe, just maybe, his job is taking over his life, Mingyu thinks as he checks his social blade for millionth time that day. When he’s not working, he’s thinking about working, or tired from overworking. Working, working, working. But he loves working. He really does.

Wonwoo walks in, and the last seat left is next to Mingyu.

He internally rolls his eyes at the universe for making this happen. As if his heart needs any more stress than it’s already under.

The computer lab is dark and chill and their teacher never bothers to check that they’re actually doing what they should be doing. Well, Mingyu’s always doing what he should be, but he could do something else if he wanted to. It looks like Wonwoo’s the same, focused on his work with his headphones in. 

Something like courage springs up inside Mingyu. It’s not like he’s never talked to Wonwoo. Just maybe not often. But if now’s not the time, then when?

“What are you listening to?” He asks, a few heads turning due to the silence of the room and the contrast of Mingyu’s voice. Wonwoo doesn’t even flinch. Not a muscle, not a fraction of movement. Instead he feels Minyu’s gaze on him, and finally pauses his music, taking a headphone out and smiling apologetically at the other boy for being so strange and annoying. 

Mingyu thinks he just smiles for the sake of gifting Mingyu the view, which he has no problem with. He asks again, his own face loosening into a smile. He’s certain his canines are out which is all kinds of embarrassing because he’s smiling _that_ wide, but Wonwoo only matches him with a pretty little nose scrunch and now Mingyu can’t hold back the giggles that sit on the edge of his lips, just waiting to tumble out. 

Wonwoo turns his phone toward Mingyu, flashing the song that’s playing. Not much of a talker, but never really has been. Maybe Mingyu should be surprised to see him listening to The Cure, but then he figures it’s pretty on-brand for the quiet kid with glasses who loves reading and wears kitschy 80’s sweaters.

“What are you listening to?” Wonwoo asks, sending Mingyu into the biggest panic of being spoken to by his ultimate crush. And it’s so lame and awful Mingyu feels the cringe deep in his soul but powers through it, focusing his energy on showing Wonwoo the song he’s listening to. “I’ve never heard of him.” Wonwoo says, slightly disappointed in himself and the lost opportunity to bond over music. Like the conversation ended way too quickly.

“You should listen to him! You’d probably like him. Let me send you this playlist, it’s all his really good songs.” Mingyu swallows every stutter that dares to bubble up inside of him. Now of all times is _not_ the time. He doesn’t dare to ruin this moment. He doesn’t dare to give it up that easy.

“Oh, sure! Let me give you my number.” Mingyu looks very taken aback. Because he really is. Wonwoo definitely did not mean to sound so excited at the prospect of having a new friend (especially one called Kim Mingyu) and he did _not_ mean to just offer his number to Mingyu. Could he come across as any more desperate?

At least Mingyu’s the one with his number. The ball’s in his court. Maybe he’ll just forget about it.

Mingyu doesn’t know _what _to do. But I mean, he kind of _has_ to text him the playlist. So he’s gonna _have_ to text him. What did he get himself into?__

__He reasons that it’s best for him to just send the playlist right here right now, instead of waiting and making it weird or forgetting to do it and making Wonwoo think he hates him or something. Not that Wonwoo cares about him at all, ⅓ of loser club. But still, this is his only chance to make some sort of an impression on his crush (he mentally cringes at the word ‘crush’) and decides to do it._ _

__But he just can’t bring himself to._ _

__He’s too nervous, and it’s weird and strange and Wonwoo is right next to him and what if he sees him doing it all and sees Mingyu for the playlist hoarder that he is and he just can’t take that kind of risk, okay?_ _

__The class crawls on and on and on, Mingyu suddenly so strangely aware of Wonwoo. The calm rise and fall of his chest, the way he drums his fingers on the keyboard when he’s thinking or when his fringe falls over his face, covering his pretty brown eyes. Even when he’s not looking at Wonwoo, he’s so aware that he’s right there next to him._ _

__Wonwoo can’t focus for the rest of the lesson. At all._ _

__No matter how hard he tries, all he has to do is look up into the glass in front of him to catch Mingyu looking at him. And it does something to him, for reasons he can’t explain or understand, but he has this feeling in his stomach like when you almost fall off a staircase. But it’s constant, and pleasant, and is this what it’s like to get attention? He’s never really talked to Mingyu, only day-dreamed about them talking one day, and his favourite alternative reality in which loser club has 4 members and he has some sort of a friendship circle._ _

__Now his daydream is playing out before him, and Mingyu liked that stupid cliche song by The Cure he was listening to, and do playlists kind of count as those cd’s people used to burn love songs onto? Because it feels that way._ _

__Maybe he’s overreacting. He probably is. But this is Mingyu, the boy who always looks so happy and gets good grades and has friends and always seemed a million worlds away from him. He’s here, talking to Wonwoo and smiling like maybe he wants to talk to Wonwoo and maybe he _did_ actually want to know what song he was listening to._ _

__Wonwoo decides to let himself indulge in this silly little feeling like he’s somehow being doted on by the prettiest boy in school. Which he’s not, and he knows that. But he reasons this is probably his once-in-a-blue-moon, so he indulges in it the whole lesson and looks up into the glass every couple of minutes, just so he can catch Mingyu smiling and looking at him._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ilovethisausomuch
> 
> i hope yall are enjoying this because it is SUCH a pleasure to write. I live for comments, even if its just about how stupid everyone is being, so please please let me know what you think !!!
> 
> thanks for reading my garbage <3


	5. 005

“I can’t do it.”

“Mingyu, it’s one text. Yes you can.” 

Mingyu decides Soonyoung doesn’t understand the gravity of this situation. At all. 

His analytics from last year showed that Wednesdays always turned out the least viewers, and with both passing senior year and his sanity in mind, he’d decided to take Wednesdays off streaming. Which was a big step for him and it took Minghao and Soonyoung the entire summer to convince him, but sitting on the bus and talking to Soonyoung on the phone like there’s not a single problem in their lives makes him all too happy.

He still hasn’t spoken to Minghao since yesterday’s lunch. Which kind of makes him feel sick if he thinks about it for too long, so he just doesn’t. He would’ve loved to spend his free afternoon with Minghao, but he figures it’s only so long until they’re cool again. And it’s not like Soonyoung’s all that bad. 

“Ok, but you didn’t see the way he looked at me! Dude, what am I gonna do?”

Soonyoung doesn’t even hesitate. “You’re going to text him the playlist.” 

Mingyu scrolls through the list of songs for the millionth time, critically analysing every single one to make _absolutely sure_ it’s a bop. What if Wonwoo hates it? What if he hates Mac Demarco?

If it turns out that Wonwoo _does_ hate Mac Demarco, Mingyu figures it was just never meant to be anyway. 

“Yeah, but what if it sucks? And then he never talks to me again because it’s awful and he thinks I have terrible taste. Hm? Then what?”

Mingyu really wishes he and Minghao were beefing at a more _convenient_ time because right now he really needs his advice on this, and Minghao is probably the only other person who’s music taste he would actually trust.

“Well, I don’t know shit about Macaroni Demarco so, you’re better off asking someone else. Anyway, I’m at dance- Chan says hi- so, I gotta go. Text him and tell me what he says! Go get ‘em tiger.”

The line goes dead, and Mingyu’s left to do the only thing he really can:

Text Minghao. 

* * *

Minghao’s neighbour blasts the absolute shit out of that one Front Bottoms album, which sounds to Minghao like he had a good day.  
Today of all days, he’s trying to block the music out. He’s listening to the playlist Mingyu’s meant to be sending to Wonwoo, which is a huge deal and as Mingyu’s best friend he’ll feel partly responsible if it doesn’t go well.  


_Me:_

_get rid of passing out pieces, idk why that was on there to begin with_

_and add without me that’s a classic bop_

 __Mingyu’s a little offended at the roast of his playlist but thanks Minghao anyway, at which point he takes his headphones out and puts a hand up to his wall, laying in his bed and listening to the music from next door.

His phone vibrates and it _never_ does that, his only friends always too busy to message him, so all this excitement builds up inside of him just to crash like a wave into his stomach when he reads the name.

_Wen Junhui._

He’s too scared to even read past that. He throws his phone onto the rug next to his bed and rolls over, hugging his knees to his chest and letting his mind go absolutely crazy with thoughts of why and what and just how hard of a whooping he’s gonna get tomorrow. He decides to just not look. He doesn’t have to, no one’s forcing him, and yeah it’s immature but he doesn’t really have it in him to fight that.

* * *

Wednesdays are Wonwoo’s least favourite day of the week. Well, this Wednesday in particular was pretty good, but usually he has an entirely free afternoon with nothing to do, which often involves wasting too much time on video games and getting no homework done.  


This afternoon however, he’s very preoccupied. Waiting for a text from a certain Kim Mingyu, who he certainly hasn’t stopped thinking about since he left his sight after school.

It feels like it’s never gonna come, and by the time Jeonghan rocks up for dinner all hope is well and truly lost. 

Jeonghan says hello to Wonwoo’s mother like the polite boy he is, as if they haven’t known each other since they were kids and she wouldn’t bat an eyelash if he stormed in unannounced. Wonwoo hears the pitter patter of his light footsteps as he climbs the stairs, and finally lets himself into the room.

“Wooh! I am _tired_. Like end-of-semester kinda tired. What’s for dinner?” Jeonghan flops down on his bed, kicking his shoes off onto the hardwood floor and staring at the ceiling that still has those glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to it.

“Lasagna.” Wonwoo barely looks up from his book to answer. They’re almost brothers, Jeonghan being at his house or him being at Jeonghan’s feels more familiar than being alone. They’re so wildly different it’s almost unsettling how well they get along, but something about it just works. They balance eachother out and to be honest, they’d probably both be completely lost without the other. 

“What are you so stressed about?” Jeonghan says softly, eyes still trained on the ceiling above him, fingers fiddling with the blanket at the end of Wonwoo’s bed. 

“What makes you think I’m stressed?” Wonwoo knows better than to ask that. Of course Jeonghan is right. He doesn’t really know how else to avoid the conversation they’re surely about to have. He doesn’t really feel like telling Jeonghan about this big fat dumb crush he suddenly has on Mingyu.

“Well, your bag was at the door instead of near your bed, which means you ran in and dumped it at the door, only to come and flop on the bed without having even changed out of your _impossibly_ skinny jeans and the juice wasn’t out on the counter so you didn’t even stop to eat something. What’s the deal?” Now he flops over onto his side, one arm holding his head up and the other still touching the soft fabric of his bed.

Wonwoo could try to lie, sure he could. There’d be no point to it though. Even he could tell when something was up with Jeonghan, being the first to have ever noticed that he had a thing for Seungcheol way back when. It shouldn’t surprise him that Jeonghan seems to magically know all of this. There’s no point in keeping it from him; and anyway, how bad could it really be?

“I’m waiting for a text. From Mingyu.” He rushes to add the last bit on, a last minute decision but one he mildly regrets as he’s saying the words out loud and realising that Kim Mingyu isn’t just any boy. He is one third of loser club.

Jeonghan is really quiet for a while. Thinking, processing, running each word over in his mind to make absolutely sure he hasn’t misheard. 

“What, like, Kim Mingyu? You don’t _like_ him, do you?” Jeonghan’s eyebrows crease in the middle. His tone is angry, but his face is more confused, and Wonwoo figures he’s just trying to make sense of why exactly Wonwoo would give a rat’s ass about Mingyu all of a sudden, or when they had even breathed within a 10 meter radius of each other. What could Wonwoo even see in Mingyu anyway? He’s just some loser kid who got the short end of the stick in high school, nothing special or particularly interesting about him. Plus, to his knowledge, they’d never even spoken before, and Wonwoo kind-of sort-of tells him everything, so what the fuck?

Wonwoo isn’t scared of Jeonghan the way other people are. They’re equals, not the hunter and the hunted. He doesn’t have the same dynamic that everybody else does with Jeonghan.

“Well, I don’t, _like_ like him, I mean, we’ve never talked before or anything. He’s just cute I guess.” Wonwoo can feel the heat on his face. Curse his impossibly pale complexion.

“Oh, my god. Woo, are you serious?” Jeonghan actually laughs, throws his head back and his perfect bleach blonde locks with it, laughing with all the happiness and grandeur of a popular kid, the side of him Wonwoo refuses to accept is really a part of him. 

“You can’t be. You have to be kidding. _Kim Mingyu_ , really? Really?” He stares straight at Wonwoo’s poor confused face. Jeonghan’s not really one for filters, or telling people what they want to hear. Kim Mingyu is an absolute, total and unquestionable loser. And yeah, Wonwoo’s not exactly the quarterback, but he can still do better than teacher’s-pet-Mingyu.

Wonwoo’s mom calls them down for dinner, and the two let this whole Kim Mingyu thing escape them for a second. They spring up and walk to the door, where Jeonghan shoves the other boy out of the way and sprints through the door frame and down the stairs like he hasn’t done the same thing a million times and slipped over, but old habits die hard. “I’m telling your mom you have a crush on the school loser!” He calls as he races down, leaving Wonwoo to beg from the top of the stairs, knowing full-well that Jeonghan would still love him and fold his clothes every time he comes over regardless of whether he’s crushing on Kim Mingyu or not. 

But he’s _not_ crushing on Kim Mingyu, so it doesn’t matter anyway.

“Speaking of crushes-” Jeonghan says as he sets the table, Wonwoo’s mother working around him. “Junhui messaged that kid Mingyu’s friends with. Not the one with the eyes, the one with the ears.”

“In comparison to the one _without_ the ears?” Wonwoo’s mother laughs at their conversation, the three of them coming together to sit at the table, Jeonghan pouring everyone water and Wonwoo passing over the last few plates.

“Shut up, you know the one! They do Chinese together and he pissed Junhui all the way off yesterday. Anyway, they have this group project together and he messaged him asking if they could get together to work on it or whatever.” He takes a bite of the foot and brings his hand up to cover his mouth as he keeps talking. “He says he doesn’t like him, but I bet you he does.”

Wonwoo stops to think it over. He always feels bad that Jeonghan has so many stories and gossip to share, because he has so many friends. Wonwoo never has anything exciting to tell him, but it means he pays extra close attention to the things Jeonghan tells him about his friends. Junhui barely even messages back his own friends, let alone other people, and even more unheard of is him meeting up with people outside of school. Between football and studying, Junhui would almost always stay home during whatever free time he had.

“I thought he never hung out with anybody.” Wonwoo said thoughtfully, working through his food and letting his mind keep thinking over the situation.

“Right? What’s the deal with that anyway? Like, they’ve never ever spoken, Junhui just gives him crap all the time and now all of a sudden he wants to-” He drops his cutlery to form quotation marks and Wonwoo can’t help but laugh to himself. _“ -‘Work on our group project’_ ”

“You’ve never talked about this other boy.” Wonwoo’s mother notes from across the table, content to sit and listen to the two boys talk.

“Yeah well, we aren’t friends with him or his group, like _at all_. It’s so weird of him to suddenly give a damn.” He takes another bite of his food. “I’m not gonna ask though. He’ll come to me, just you wait.”

* * *

_Unknown Number:  
[Mac](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Er8fdbqnVPIkSr5o607GD), a playlist by min9yu.97_

“What?” Jeonghan can see Wonwoo stop and stare and the notification on his phone out of the corner of his eye. Wonwoo sits there, stunned and shocked, his heart suddenly speeding up for absolutely zero reason. It’s a text for christ’s sake.

“What!” Now Jeonghan drops his phone, sitting up from the corner where Wonwoo’s bed meets the wall and staring at his friend. Wonwoo stares right back, absolutely unable to process the moment or even say anything to explain himself.

Jeonghan reaches over and grabs the phone from Wonwoo’s now shaky hands and reads the text as a new one comes in. 

_Unknown Number:_

_Hope you like it_

_It’s nothing special really, i just like him as an artist XD_

Jeonghan throws the phone down onto the bed in disgust and shakes his head, blond locks going haywire. “Nope. He says xd, it’s over. It’s over for you two, I’m sorry.” 

“Shut up, Jeonghan! What did he say?” Wonwoo sits up on his heels like an excited little puppy, smile starting to show through and eyes starting to scrunch with the giddy excitement of having a boy (and Kim Mingyu at that) text him. 

“Okay, he said-” He picks the phone back up again from his neglected spot on the comforter, “Hope you like it, it’s nothing special, he’s a good artist, and then the xd. Y’know, I never really saw him as the xd type, but then again I never saw him as _your_ type, so I guess today is just not my day.” 

“Let me see!” Wonwoo takes the phone back from Jeonghan and soaks in every single word, even the cursed xd, and his stomach feels like he’s on a rollercoaster that’s only free-fall.

“So, text him back!” Jeonghan is just as excited, if not more, to see his best friend crushing on someone. Even if it is Mingyu. 

“No, absolutely not. I can’t. What do I even say!” Wonwoo stares at his phone like it might just tell him the answer, or like Mingyu might say something else, and he wouldn’t dare to miss it. 

“You say, hey Mingyu, thanks for the playlist, are you gay and do you like boba?” Wonwoo groans and twists his body around as Jeonghan giggles at his poor, love-stricken friend. 

“Okay, but hear me out! If he likes boba, it overrules the use of xd _and_ it gives you the easiest date idea in the book.” 

“Date?” 

“Yeah, a date.” 

“But didn’t you just go out to get boba with Junhui?” 

“Not the point.” Wonwoo giggles a little to himself, for both changing the subject and catching Jeonghan out for his ostensible behaviour. “I don’t like Junhui like that, dummy. Stop changing the subject!” 

* * *

  
“Shut up Soonyoung! Put Seungkwan back on the phone. Seungkwan, if a guy asks if I like boba, am I meant to say yes or no?” 

“Definitely yes. He’s asking you on a date.” groans can be heard from his side of the line.

Mingyu was definitely not made to stand alone. He needs opinions on his clothes, advice on his work and input on what he texts people back. He wasn’t really prepared for Wonwoo to reply to his text, but then again what else would he have done? Left him on read? Would that have been better or worse?

Soonyoung is being a social butterfly with his out-of-school friends, which is lucky for Mingyu because Soonyoung wouldn’t know romance if it hit him in the face with a dozen roses. Vernon is closer to the Soonyoung end of the scale, Chan is the voice of reason in-between and Seungkwan could probably write love letters with his eyes closed. He figures this is probably a good mix to get the right advice and not fuck it up with Wonwoo.

“Kwannie, you think everything is a date.” Vernon smiles that big heart-shaped smile at Seungkwan, and the poor boy tries his best to not smile right back, but it’s difficult. Vernon has the most contagious happiness he’s ever experienced in a person and it’s honestly rude.

“You thought people gave you chocolates on valentines day because they _value your friendship_. Don’t try to talk to me about romance.”

“Since when do you guys talk anyway?” Chan asks over the bickering, taking another sip of his iced coffee and listening intently.

“They don’t, but apparently they sat together in I.T. today and now Mingyu thinks they’re meant to be.” Soonyoung answers for Mingyu, knowing full well he’d tell some lie that would make him sound like a big man who has a million people thirsting in his dm’s. Which is probably true, but he has the confidence of a peanut and can’t even open a message without going into panic mode.

“I do not! Okay, we sat together, he was listening to The Cure and I said I’d send him my Mac Demarco playlist because I thought he’d like it!”

“Damn. That’s gay.” Chan says softly.

“Not it’s not!” Mingyu defends, voice all high-pitched and rushed.

“Wait wait, who did you say it was of?” Vernon asks.

“Mac Demarco.” Mingyu replies, hesitantly albeit. 

“Oh yeah, that’s gay.” Vernon confirms.

“Gay.” Soonyoung calls out.

“Definitely gay.” Chan reaffirms. 

“I’m so glad you noticed that I, a man, getting your advice on texting back another man, am a homosexual.” Soonyoung snickers to himself and his coffee almost goes up his nose.

“You could’ve sent something less gay.” Vernon pipes up, earning him laughs from the group of friends.

“Would you leave me alone, oh my god!” They laugh even harder now, the exasperation prevalent in Mingyu's voice.

“Just tell him you like boba, okay? If he asks you on a date then good, and if he doesn’t then at least he knows you like boba and aren’t a garbage human.”

“If this goes wrong, I am 100% blaming you Seungkwan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMBACKFROMTHISWEIRDANDUNPLANNEDBREAKHELLO
> 
> i hope i didnt make u wait too long :,(
> 
> if ur still here reading, then thanks. im sorry this entire chapter is about meanie trying to text each other, but at the same time im not sorry at all. + this is important to character depth and relationship development and blah blah blah. i hope u didnt hate it too much.
> 
> if u read this, i love u the absolute most, thank u for supporting me, my writing and the boys!


	6. 006

“You and Mingyu are both seriously pussies” Soonyoung notes under his breath, walking with Minghao to the bathrooms. It was empty apart from them, everyone else sitting through their obligatory wasted time of the day, or as the school likes to call it, homeroom.

Minghao did _not_ want to read that text from Junhui under any circumstances, but he figured Junhui might have a meet-up spot for his ass-whooping, and it’d be pretty rude of him to just not show up. So with Soonyoung being the backbone of loser club as always, he’d offered to read the text for him. Mostly because he’s nosy and doesn’t know how to say in his own lane, but Minghao doesn’t need to know that.

Minghao swings the door open and walks into the corner of the bathrooms, arms crossed and pulling his knit cardigan taught over the sharp edges of his body. Tucking a strand of hair behind his ear and chewing his bottom lip between his teeth, a nervous mess of a boy before the first lesson of the day had even started. 

Minghao gives Soonyoung his phone, his greedy eyes scanning over the screen. He kind of has no words, which is extremely unusual for him, and now more than ever he is _so_ glad that he can’t stay in his own lane. This is the best tea he’s heard since Jihoon told him about Vernon and Seungkwan drunkenly kissing at a party over the summer.

“Well, tell me!” Minghao says with urgency, wiggling his arms at Soonyoung, sweater sleeves flapping and desperate to know what Junhui had said.

“He says he wants to meet up.” Soonyoung says simply, unsure of how else to go about it. 

“Oh my god Soonyoung, this is it, I’m done! I’m absolutely, so, completely, totally dead.” Minghao’s smiling, but it’s very much a cry-for-help smile more so than a happy one.

“No no, he wants to work on your group project. Like, he wants to see you on the weekend.” Minghao’s all wide eyes and jaw wide open, all thoughts leaving his mind and coming up completely blank. It’s surreal, like he’s not in this moment anymore. Like this isn’t real; it just can’t be.

“No, he didn’t- he did not say that. Show me.” Soonyoung is silent as he lets Minghao read the text for himself, watching closely as his eyes take in every word.

_Wen Junhui:_

_Hey, I was wondering if you’d wanna get together to work on the chinese project. I’m pretty busy during the week but if you’re free over the weekend we can work on it then?_

Minghao doesn’t know what to think. He’s never ever properly spoken to Junhui, let alone in a positive light, and they suddenly go from being forced to work on a project together to Junhui messaging him? It’s too much, too quick, and he doesn’t know what to make of any of it. There has to be something else, an ulterior motive, just _something_. This is too weird, and it makes him uneasy and sick and he has to see Junhui tomorrow because they have mandarin together and now, he’s officially spiraling. 

“So… are you gonna message back?”

“No! There has to be something else to this, he’s gonna throw me into the river or something, there’s something off.” Soonyoung is quiet for a while, thinking over Minghao’s perspective.

“You know what, I think you’re right. It could be something bad, and have you guys ever even talked before? Like where did this even come from! Last I knew he hated your guts”

“Right!” Minghao almost shouts, pacing now from his spot in the corner. “Like, my whole life all he’s done is bully me, _constantly_ , and now he’s just, I don’t- I don’t understand. And I have to see him tomorrow too. Fuck.” He curses under his breath, now so visibly agitated, picking at the loose ends of his cardigan, worrying Soonyoung to death. 

“Don’t worry about it. Just don’t reply, no one’s forcing you. Do the project, make sure you never have to be partners again, graduate and you’ll never have to see him again. Yeah?” Soonyoung grabs Minghao by the shoulders, shaking a little and looking into his eyes, giving his best smile and accepting the weak one Minghao gives back. It’ll have to do, at least for now anyway, because the bell goes and they have to rush off to class.

* * *

“Nothing?”

“Nothing!” Jeonghan and Junhui sit at their favourite seats, the back corner. Jeonghan had been pressing about Minghao the whole morning, much to Junhui’s dismay but not exactly unexpected. It’s a very Jeonghan thing to latch onto the newest gossip and follow it. He loves knowing about everything that goes on in the school. 

Minghao hadn’t texted Junhui back. Maybe he got the wrong idea, but Minghao _did_ say that he wanted to work with Junhui, and they’d been kind of fine the last lesson, so he just kind of doesn’t understand why he wouldn’t have replied to Junhui?

Not even Junhui really knows why he’d messaged Minghao. Soul searching? Maybe. Realisations? Kind of. A redemption story? Most probably.

Why was he mean anyway? Not just to Minghao, in general. He used to hate the popular kids. He used to be loser club. But then he got hot, and the daily football practises started paying off. The first year of high school he came back all defined muscles and sideswept hair. He was tall and had that pretty, sun-kissed tan to him. His natural skin tone that everyone used to bully him for, they suddenly loved. He and Jisoo had shared their first class, he met Seungcheol at their first team practise, ready to hate the new ‘star player’ of the team only to find the kindest person he’d ever met, who then introduced him to Jeonghan, and together, they were unstoppable. 

There were others, like Jaehyun and and Taeyong and Jungkook and Yugyeom, the popular group was kind of undefined. But the four of them, people would part in the hallways for them to walk through. It was so strange for Junhui, going from being the weird chinese kid with the braces to the hot footballer with the quarterback friend. 

Maybe, kind of, he’d been given great power, and maybe he hadn’t been all that greatly responsible with it. 

Maybe he still isn’t, because isn’t it kind of using Minghao anyway? He feels bad. Minghao seems nice, and he dresses alright and he has this really nice smile like when he smiles he means it, and Junhui wonders what it might feel like to be the reason behind that smile.

He’d be lying to himself, saying that’s the only reason why he’s suddenly taken this interest to Minghao, like it has nothing to do with the fact that he’s never properly looked into his eyes enough to realise how pretty they are, or thought about how nice it is that he sits in class in his own world, drawing all over his pages and day-dreaming. Junhui decides to not think about that part. He doesn’t really want to. 

“Hello, snap out of it! Here comes your boy.” Jeonghan smirks, signaling with his head towards the door, where Minghao is coming in with Soonyoung, bright yellow binder held tightly to his chest, cream knit cardigan hanging off his slender frame. He’s laughing, looking back at the other boy behind him as he walks into the class. Then he spots Junhui, leaning back on his chair, arms pulled taught across his chest and his eyes go wide, pushing Soonyoung back out the door and turning the corner, right out of Junhui’s sight. Junhui’s eyebrows furrow together in confusion. 

* * *

_“What the fuck!”_ Minghao whispers violently at Soonyoung. Soonyoung had kind-of sort-of skipped every single english lesson so far. For no good reason except the teacher is a drop-kick and he _can_ skip. So he had no clue that Junhui was in this class.

“I completely forgot he’s in this class, what the fuck!” Minghao calms himself a little, panic draining from his eyes. But only a little. 

He was so totally _not_ ready to face Junhui, like at all, and not mentally prepared, and curse Junhui for being in this english class! “Well, it’s fine. You’ve already made an absolute dick out of yourself for walking in and out like that, so let’s just go in and sit far away and you can mope about how unfair life is.” Minghao is, for someone reason, extremely influenced by this peptalk, and figures that _yeah, I can do this, it’s okay, he said he’d beat me up on the weekend, he’s probably busy beating up someone else now, it’s okay_.

The class is pretty quiet when they walk in and no one bats an eye, except for Jeonghan, who’s neck snaps towards the two boys instantly. He smirks and taps Junhui on the arm, signaling towards the door and then they lock eyes.

Junhui’s look is so hard to read, it sends a chill down Minghao’s spine and he feels it every step of the way down, right from the base of his neck to the small of his back. Junhui’s never this good at hiding his emotions, but in this moment he stares at Minghao with absolutely nothing in his expression, just staring, like he can see every little piece of Minghao. It makes squirm under his look, heat rushing to Minghao’s face and his instinct sending his eyes to the floor, shuffling meekly to his desk and praying to god that he could just disappear into his chair. He can pretty much feel Junhui staring into the back of his head.

* * *

Minghao scurries out of his seat as soon as the bell goes off, the rest of his class moving like old gears, hauling their tired limbs into action, gathering books and binders into their grasp. He doesn’t wait for Soonyoung or Mingyu, holding his breath until he’s made it to safety, out of the class and towards the dumpsters.

“Minghao!”

He doesn’t have to turn around to know exactly who it is. He freezes right where he is, mind blank and heart racing. Then he goes for it, first a walk and then a run, turning a sharp corner and hearing footsteps coming up behind him. Heavy and quick and the same time, exactly how a footballer’s should be.

Junhui chases after him, the student body doing half the work for him, flooding the hallway and slowing Minghao down. As soon as he’s within reach, Junhui stretches out to grab a handful of the soft cream fabric of his cardigan. It’s soft to the touch, and even Junhui’s calloused hands feel weak at the touch of the fabric.

Minghao can’t help but panic. He feels the tug at his cardigan and instantly turns around, attempting to swat the hand away. Junhui stares straight into his eyes, gaze strong and once again, unforgiving. Minghao can see Junhui’s mouth move but doesn’t catch a word of what he says, the hallways too loud with the excitement of teenagers on the brink of the weekend. “What? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you!” Minghao almost has to yell, feeling his fingertips shake and heart pump pure anxiety through his body all too quickly. He’s spoken to Junhui like this, one on one, a grand total of three times, all of which were this week, and it sends every single piece of him into panic to be constantly forced to face the person who had single-handedly made his life hell for the past 3 years, going on 4. 

Junhui doesn’t look bothered, or upset, or like he’s about to beat Minghao up, which was the option Minghao had been betting on. He’s not like Tuesday, or even Wednesday, there’s no big reaction or anger. He’s a normal person, a reasonable one, one who doesn’t look like he’s about to rip Minghao to shreds. 

Minghao feels like when you sleep and jolt yourself awake. Except it’s constant, and awful. 

“I said, did you get my text?” Junhui kind-of screams back, taking a step towards Minghao. Minghao doesn’t know what to say, his mind is blank and there’s no helping it. They’re standing so close now, but Minghao is too in shock and too deep in his head to step back, and he wouldn’t dare do anything to startle the beast and make Junhui mad at him again. He kind of doesn’t mind this Junhui, docile and peaceful; normal. 

They look weird and out of place, standing in the middle of a moving mass of people, like a time-lapse, the two of them in their own world.

“Well, I just wanted to know if you wanna work on the project sometime, like we could get boba or something and work on it.” Junhui is uncharacteristically nervous. Jeonghan told him getting boba is the ideal date, and even though he’d rolled his eyes and scoffed at the time, Jeonghan is the one with more experience in this arena, and he figures it’s a safe bet. Even though this is not a date. At all.

He doesn’t know why he’s nervous, or why the thought of Minghao saying no upsets him the way it does, but he just wants him to say yes. Really badly.

Minghao wasn’t expecting that, or to be confronted about not replying, but he’s kind of really curious about this Junhui thing. Like maybe, he wasn’t going to beat him up? Minghao figures this is Junhui’s redemption story arc, like this is pity, or a dare, or hours towards his community service.

But it’s funny, and Minghao likes the idea of that. Some big dumb jock thinking he’s a poor tortured soul, and trying to make things right, all while Minghao knows exactly what he’s doing. Like he has the upper hand in this dynamic for once. 

“Sure. You busy tomorrow?” It’s that instant courage again, like the first time he talked back to Junhui, his words come out a lot more confident than he’s feeling. 

“Uh- no, no I’m not. We can do tomorrow. After school?” His words are rushed and he’s almost tripping over them, completely giving himself away. Minghao smirks now, seeing that maybe his theory isn’t all that far off. 

“Yeah. After school.” He nods with his words, sending strands of hair into his face and sending Junhui into oblivion with the way it falls over his face, messy and adorable.

“Cool, well, I’ll meet you at the car park and I can drive us to the mall or something.” Junhui comes off a little confident, but it’s too late. Minghao’s seen enough to know he’s caught on. He knows what this is really about.

“Okay.” He replies simply.

“Okay.” Junhui nods back.

“Cool.” 

“Nice.”

“Great.”

“Fantastic.”

“I’ll see you then.” And Minghao turns and walks away, making sure to not look back. He’s a little giddy, in a way he doesn’t really want to think about because this is _Wen Junhui_ and he does _not_ have Stockholm Syndrome. So he lets himself feel stupidly happy and doesn’t wipe the smile off his face. He decides to just no think about it, because he hasn’t really felt this happy about something in a while, and it feels really nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy friday !! i hope this makes ur day a little better, fridays should be amazing so i hope this can make your day good !
> 
> this was a product of procrastination and a love for this fic. plsplspls let me know what u think and who u wanna hear about in the next chapters !!!!!!!
> 
> if u read this, i love u, thank u so so much for supporting me and this fic and of course, svt !


	7. 007

Even Soonyoung, part-time airhead and full-time clown, could tell something is off with Jisoo. He’s a polite boy, always smiling, eyes trained on the teacher and quiet when he needs to be. Today, his head is down, playing with one of those 4 colour pens, clicking down every colour until he comes back to the first, just to start again.

The class splits off to rehearse solos and of course, the teacher asks Soonyoung to hand papers out to the class. He doesn’t consider himself much of a teachers pet, except for maybe in the one class he does care about. Is it so bad of him to take a little pride in being the favourite? Surely not. He smiles to himself a little, making his way to all of his classmates and handing out the new arrangements for the class band. As he rifles through the papers to find Clarinet #3’s piece, he keeps an eye on Jisoo, head low and fingers barely touching the strings of his guitar, strums inaudible through the rest of the noise that fills the room so unapologetically, in complete juxtaposition of the meekness of Jisoo’s own sound.

To be fair, Jisoo has never been _particularly_ awful, maybe just lumped in with his asshole friends and laughing at jokes that he probably shouldn’t. Nonetheless, he’s generally known to be the nice one of the popular kids and it’s pretty much impossible for Soonyoung to keep his nose in his own business. He wanders over, each step calculated and no limb out of place as he stood there, in front of one of the most powerful boys in school, with his defences at the lowest Soonyoung has ever seen them.

“Guitar 2?” Soonyoung dares to ask, flicking through papers but eyes looking up through his eyelashes, trained on the boy in front of him, eager to eat up whatever he’d do next. There’s a nod, and that’s all, his fingers still hanging onto each fret on the neck of his guitar as if it’s all that was grounding him to reality in this moment. Suspicious, and nothing but. 

“Here.” He almost whispers, only as loud as his vocal chords dare, which is not loud at all, and it’s surprising that Jisoo even heard him. But he’s attentive, and always tuned into his environment, just sitting and noticing and waiting, to put all this information to use. People usually let their guard down around him. And as someone who pays very close attention to everything, it’s always so saccharine when someone let something slip that they know they shouldn’t have, but then it’s done, and in his memory forever.

“Hey, you okay?” He’s probably imagining it, but it’s as if the room goes silent when Jisoo looks into Soonyoung’s eyes, and he feels shivers all through his back. Jisoo looks shocked, eyes wide, but still quiet. He catches himself, eyes looking down and a softer smile replacing his once blank face, returning to the Jisoo he’s known for, but maybe not the Jisoo he feels like right now. 

“Yeah! Hey, can I have a copy of the bass charts too?” It’s as if nothing happened. As if he’s perfectly normal. Soonyoung can’t help but smirk to himself. People really love to underestimate him. 

“Sure. Leave them on the pile when you’re done!” And he skips away, ever so happy, and with such hot gossip to share at the next loser club meeting. He refuses to tell Minghao in class, this is gossip worthy enough to be shared by the whole committee of members.

* * *

Wonwoo is 100%, completely, undoubtedly, going to die. He and Mingyu had been speaking non-stop since that Wednesday night, but maybe calling their text exchanges “speaking” is a stretch, because right now the prospect of speaking face to face is scaring Wonwoo shitless. He’s so absolutely nervous he looked up how to breathe on Wikihow, which was only really mildly helpful as he’s obviously still struggling quite greatly. His big idea was to just get to class before Mingyu, and then he wouldn’t have to be the one to decide if they sit together or not, and he’d just leave it to Mingyu to make that call.

Very unfortunately for him, Mingyu had obviously had the same idea and there he was, standing outside their class, alone, a full 5 minutes early.

Wonwoo went into panic mode. He saw Mingyu and instantly freaked, turned around and did his best to hide behind some lockers. Unfortunately he isn’t the most sly, and made a yelping sound like a stepped on puppy and quite the calamity in his shuffle to hide himself behind the lockers.

Mingyu looks up just in time to catch a hint of a beige sweater scuttling behind the lockers, and could do nothing but giggle to himself a little. He could start to see a hint of those almost-black locks as someone tried to peek past their hiding spot, and it didn’t really take much else for Mingyu to realise who else could be at class so early, and hiding from him, the person least feared in this school. 

“Wonwoo, is that you?” His words are barely coherent through his giggles, but from behind the lockers comes Wonwoo, hands clasped in front of him and eyes on the ground, meekly shuffling forward, red flushing his cheeks in a way Mingyu could describe as nothing but adorable. 

Maybe Wonwoo has no idea about Mingyu’s big stupid crush on him that he’s had for an embarrassingly long time. It melts Mingyu’s heart to see Wonwoo like this, a giggling, nervous mess, all sweater paws and ruffled hair. God, it near kills him to even be talking to Wonwoo, always so unattainable and suddenly the person he seems to text in 30 second increments. It’s absolutely insane to him to suddenly be the object of his affection, and it’s putting a lot of stress on his heart. 

_(Okay, maybe not affection, but Mingyu can dream, alright? He’s been crushing on this guy for his whole high school career and now they’re finally talking, cut the man some slack)_

Wonwoo pads his way over to him softly, coming up to form a comfortable distance between the two, finally looking up to Mingyu and pushing his gold-framed glasses back up to sit higher on the bridge of his nose.

Mingyu can’t help but smile down at the boy in front of him, and it melts every little piece of Jeon Wonwoo’s heart. He’s not really sure since when Mingyu had such an effect on him, or why exactly he’s so nervous to see someone he hadn’t really given a second thought to before a few days ago. 

To be fair, they’d had plenty of classes together throughout the years. Wonwoo often thought about what it might be like to have a whole group of friends instead of just himself, and at times Jeonghan, but they never hung out at school. Jeonghan wouldn’t mind, he never did, but Wonwoo wouldn’t want to impose. Even if it _is_ loser club, he often thought about Mingyu and his friends, and how nice it might be to sit with them at lunch one day.

“Hey.” Mingyu keeps that same smile on his face, making Wonwoo return an even bigger one before he can stop himself. His heart flutters, and by god _curse_ Kim Mingyu and his charming smile and perfect hair and warm eyes. Curse him.

“Hey.” Wonwoo almost whispers back. All his nerves and over-thinking flush out of his body and there’s nothing but warmth, and all the nice things he felt when they first spoke during class. It’s the same fluttery feeling as when Mingyu asked him for his number, and he could do nothing but bask in how nice it felt to not only be wanted, but to be wanted by someone like Kim Mingyu. He’s everything in Wonwoo’s eyes; smart, focused, always smiling, kind even when he had every reason not to be, surrounded by his friends (and loyal ones at that), and not to mention, majorly dreamy. Objectively, Mingyu is perfect, in almost every way. And Wonwoo? Well, he’s far from it. And it’s nice. To have someone so perfect, doting on him, someone so pathetic.

“Uh, I’m sorry for messaging you back so late last night. I’m usually really busy in the afternoons, I didn’t meant to, uh, leave you hanging or anything.” Mingyu’s apology comes out meek and soft, but he does his best to get it out anyway. He figures he should probably apologise for messaging Wonwoo back at near midnight, even though he _did_ actually end his stream early just to message him back. He barely had time to eat his dinner before the stream, wasting much more time than necessary searching for the perfect reaction memes to send Wonwoo. 

Thankfully, they have the same taste in memes, so that wasn’t too hard. 

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. I’m usually watching streams in the afternoons, so, I was busy too.” Wonwoo does his best to recover, to help Mingyu not feel as bad, and it’s not really a lie anyway. He _is_ usually watching his favourite streamer in the afternoon, and that didn’t suddenly change just because Mingyu now has his number.

“Oh really! I’m into streamers too. I mean, like, not huge though. What are you into?” The thing about being internet famous, is, well; It’s a lot. Mingyu _could_ tell people, and probably change his entire life. For example, he could _not_ get bullied. He, Minghao and Soonyoung had had plenty of heated conversations about it.

But in the end, Mingyu doesn’t want to be treated different just because he’s starting to gain a little steam on Twitch. He doesn’t want that to be the reason people liked him, or care about him, or are nice to him. He wants people to either like him for him, or not like him at all.

“Uh, well, I don’t really watch like, one game or anything. There’s this one guy I really like though, and he streams all the time, so that’s mostly what I watch. I think he’s our age” Mingyu barely dares. There’s no way.

“All the time? B-but, what about Wednesday? We talked a lot then, I didn’t- Well, sorry if i distracted you or anything.” He doesn’t know how else to tease it, or suggest the idea, without outright asking. He doesn’t dare. It’s so ridiculously unlikely, it’s just not possible.

“Oh, no, he doesn’t stream on Wednesdays. Well, I usually just play it in the background while I do other things anyway.” At this point, Mingyu starts to panic. But surely there are plenty of streamers who take Wednesdays off? It’s a stupid decision and he thought he was the only one to do so, but, maybe not?

“Oh, w-well, why do you, uh, watch then? I mean, if you’re just gonna play it in the background.” He tries his best but stumbles over his words, panic truly settling in and his heart starting to run a race it knows it can’t win. 

“I mean, I dunno. He kind of talks more than he plays, and he’s always talking about interesting things. He seems really smart, there’s always discussions on his streams and he talks to people about his life and stuff. He’s a good gamer too. His voice is nice, it’s kind of just like having a podcast playing while I do homework and stuff.”

Wonwoo smiles this shy little smile, the way people smile when they talk about something they really like, and it kind of makes Mingyu’s heart break. He refuses to believe that Wonwoo truly knows about this, about _him_ , and it’s just too much. To make it worse, Wonwoo keeps going, talking into the distance like he could stay lost in thought about this boy for the whole school day if they’d let him. 

“He just, he has this vibe. Like, he’s just really nice, and warm, and for how often he streams you’d think at some point he’d be in a bad mood, but he’s always so talkative, it’s almost scary. His laugh is super infectious too, it’s hard to not be in a good mood listening to him.” Mingyu’s quiet, and Wonwoo’s pretty smile falters, just a little, for a second, but Mingyu catches it and it’s too late. Wonwoo knows, he knows, and everything he’d built up in his two separate worlds come crashing down in an instant, all around him and without mercy, trapping him in the rubble of the lie he’d built for himself in the first place.

“Well, he… he sure does sound like something.”

* * *

“Mingyu, oh my god, you are _not_ gonna believe-”

“No, _you_ are not gonna believe!” Soonyoung came crashing through the back door, Minghao following close behind, only to be met by a pacing Mingyu, hand running through his hair in a way to keep his stress at bay. 

“What happened?” Soonyoung asks, all excitement draining away from him in an instant only to be replaced with anxiety, about Mingyu and what on earth could’ve put him in such a state. He’s a calm boy, hard to rile up but not so hard to settle down again. To see him pacing like this, leg bouncing and stress evident, it made his two friends sick to their stomachs. 

“He knows.” 

“Knows what?” Minghao asks, coming closer to reach out and touch Mingyu, only for his hand to be brushed away. Minghao’s arms curl into himself again, the harsh pull of Mingyu’s fabric under his touch burning red of hot anger. 

“He knows! About Twitch, me, the _real_ me.” The friends are silent now, without a word to spare. It’s easy for them to understand now why Mingyu’s in such a panic. This is his only secret, his life away from the pain and frustration of their school life. And now, it’s gone.

“What did he say?” Soonyoung dared to ask, quietly at that.

“Well, that he’s really into this guy on Twitch. And I was like, ‘Oh wow Wonwoo, yeah tell me about that! There’s no way you’re talking about me, there’s MILLIONS of people on Twitch, there’s no way’. And then he’s like, ‘Yeah well I watch this guy, he doesn’t even play games but he just talks and he’s calm and I just like his voice and I like his opinions and blah blah blah’ so I’m like, fuck! Fuck! Because I asked, like, ‘When do you watch him?’ and he was like ‘Every day but Wednesdays, oh and by the way I think he’s our age’ and at that point he may as well have told me ‘Kim Mingyu, I know your biggest dirtiest secret and I’m going to tell my best friend Yoon Jeong-fucking-han and I hope you’re ready for all hell to break fucking loose!’.” Mingyu’s chest heaves from his heated vent, and his two friends stand silent, digesting the information and not daring to rile Mingyu up any more.

“But, he didn’t say your name though? Like, your name on Twitch?” Soonyoung asks, half thinking aloud, half trying to comfort Mingyu.

“Well no, but he may as well have, I mean, who else is stupid enough to not stream on one specific day? Every second you’re not streaming you’re losing subs, so, I don’t get who else it could be.” Now a little clamer, Mingyu’s voice sounds flat, defeated; Sad. He’s just sad. 

“And you’re saying he said he ‘liked your voice’?” Minghao can’t help the little smile that breaks onto his face, and for a second, Mingyu feels his heart flutter. Well, maybe in the heat of it all, he hadn’t thought about it that way. But yeah, Wonwoo _did_ say that. Wonwoo likes his voice. 

“Okay, well you don’t 100% know he was talking about you.” Soonyoung reasons, tensions running lower and the group calmer, Mingyu especially. 

“Well how am I supposed to find out? I can’t very well just ask him, it’ll make him suspicious of me if he isn’t already.” The trio are silent, racking their brains for any way to solve this, and to give Mingyu back the escape he had. Soonyoung used dance, Minghao used music, Mingyu used twitch; They all have a way to escape the awful reality of their school lives, a way to forget that they eat lunch next to dumpsters every day and have been locked inside toilets a countless number of times. If Mingyu loses this, it would devastate thim. All three of them knew that. 

“Ok hold on, if you guys have been talking often, and- and he’s told you about how he likes this Twitch guy, I mean, surely you can, talk about something on your stream! Something specific, that Wonwoo would like, and then, if it makes an impression on him, he might talk to you about it! And then, you’d know. If you’re the one he watches.” Minghao smiles contently at his plan, and his two friends stand in awe at their friend. And how helpful he can be when he chose to. 

“That’s...not a bad idea.” A smile starts to peek through Mingyu’s stone cold features, and his heart races at the idea that maybe things will be okay. Maybe he can still save this. 

“That’s a great idea!” Soonyoung adda, widest smile of all and arms reaching out to hit his friends playfully. 

“Wait, Soonyoung, didn’t you say you had something to tell me?” Mingyu suddenly remembers, with the fog of Wonwoo in his mind clearing. 

“It can wait.” 

* * *

“I swear to god Soonyoung, sing ‘Oppa Cha’ one more time. See what happens.” Soonyoung stands with Minghao at his locker, teasing relentlessly as soon as he was told about Junhui and Minghao’s little outing this afternoon.

“Hao-hao and Junhui, sitting in a tree-”

“Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up, or someone’s gonna hear you and then I’m really gonna get my ass kicked!” Minghao shushes him with panic, an urgency in his hands as he clasps them over Soonyoung’s mouth.

“He’s the one who asked you! What, you think people aren’t gonna see you get into his fancy car?” 

“Yeah, well, why do you think I’m taking my sweet time! I don’t wanna be seen with him.” Minghao slams his locker shut, the sound echoing through the now empty halls and the two friends finally making their way to the front of the school.

“Wait, stop, I can’t.” Minghao catches one glimpse of Junhui’s beautiful white car, sleek and pure, and the boy sitting inside, all melanin and jet-black hair. He turns back around the corner and sticks as close as he could to the wall, almost as if he can become flat and just disappear, right then and there. 

“Come on Minghao, don’t be such an idiot. Oppa is waiting!” Soonyoung pokes with a wide grin on his face.

“Soonyoung, don’t quit your dayjob. You are _not_ funny.” Minghao answers back, pouty and eyebrows furrowed together, arms crossed over his chest. 

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Look, you’ve already agreed to this, he’s there waiting, and you have this big mind game about how you have him totally worked out or whatever. You’re not going to give him your virginity, you’re getting boba and doing school work for christ’s sake. Come on.” Soonyoung pulls on his friends arm, but he refuses to move.

“I am _not_ a virgin, Kwon Soonyoung. Don’t project your sexual shortcomings onto me.”

“Ok Mother Mary, I’m sorry, let’s just go! Nothing to lose if you’ve already lost your V card!” Minghao groans from behind him, but nonetheless let himself be pulled out into the carpark by his friend. And there he was. Wen Junhui, in all his posh, snobbish glory. 

“Good luck.” Soonyoung whispers before scattering from his side and then it was just him and Junhui, eyes locking, and his expression the same as that day in English class; Unreadable. 

“Hey.” Minghao manages weakly from his place on the sidewalk, Junhui’s presence forever scary and authoritative. Junhui cracks one of his signature smiles, and Minghao absolutely refuses to be drawn in by it. He rejects the feeling. 

“You getting in or not?” Junhui yells back, loud and as if he hadn’t a care if anybody heard. Minghao’s face lights up bright red and his ears burn with embarrassment, eyes going to the pavement below him and his hands fiddling with his sweater. 

He’d never admit it, but maybe he’d given a little extra thoughts to his outfit today. The pants hit a little high on his ankle, but thankfully that was in style these days. His white button-up was half tucked in, little buttons on the cuffs undone and a black sweater vest above it, oversized but just the right amount. 

He looks _adorable_. It melts Junhui’s heart. 

Minghao scurries into the passenger side, careful to not touch the car too much or make a sound against the expensive leather as he gets in. His heart races as he sits and listens to the engine roaring beneath them, powerful but kept at bay by Junhui. They weren’t moving, and Minghao was starting to get nervous. He dares to look over at Junhui from under his fringe, only to find him staring right back. 

They’re both quiet now, staring at each other, Minghao’s pulse starting to quicken. 

“You ready?” Junhui asks, nonchalant as if they haven’t been in a staring contest since Minghao set foot on the pavement. Even though Minghao was the one to start all of this, and even the one to agree to this study date, he figures there may never be a day when he doesn’t fear Wen Junhui, if even a little bit. 

“Y-yeah.” Junhui doesn’t hesitate for a second. He slams his foot on the gas and they’re going, the top down on his convertible and wind flying past, apparently determined to separate the hair Minghao had spent so long on this morning. His heart races with adrenaline at the mere speed they’re going at, back roads near their school free of cars and the perfect raceway for Junhui and his toy of a car.

“You okay?” Junhui asks, nonchalant and calm, expression blank like going way over the speed limit does anything _but_ excite him. He looks over to catch Minghao’s eye, only for him to dart his glace away onto the road before them. Junhui can’t help but laugh. 

“Yeah.” Minghao barely manages, pushing the sound from the bottom of his throat, to make sure Junhui can hear it over the noise of the wind and the gravel beneath them and the roaring of the engine under Junhui’s touch. 

“Do you say anything other than yeah?” Junhui has the upper hand here. In his own car, with Minghao so vulnerable under not only his presence, but the car, and there’s none of him running away or talking back or making Junhui nervous; He submits to the power Junhui is so used to having over him, and it only makes Junhui more comfortable than ever.

“I- yes, I do.” Minghao doesn’t know what to say. He’s never gone this fast, _ever_ and its daunting, and it’s almost too much for his mind to be on both the feeling of being pushed against the car seat and the boy sitting in the next seat over. He’s right where Junhui wants him, and he knows it. 

“Let’s hope.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year !!!
> 
> (also i dont support reckless driving pls do NOT do that this is a work of FICITION thank u)
> 
> i hope u have an amazing year !!! im starting mine right by writing and putting more junhao into the world AND this chapter is accidentally double the word count of my usual chapters !!! so pls enjoy, let me know what you think, and feel free to hmu on twt @yugyeomsfreckle !!
> 
>  
> 
> **thank you so much for supporting me, my work, seventeen, and i hope you stick with me through this next year of writing and comebacks !!**
> 
>  
> 
> (also i was highkey re-reading the first chapters of this and my GOD are they trash i had no idea how to format and u can rlly see how much my writing has improved lmao what the FUCK was i doing !!! anyway i figure since they're peoples first impression of this fic i might go back and re-write them, keeping the same general content but making it uh, not so shit lol. anyway i'll keep u posted on that in case youd like to read that, and thank u so much for sticking it out and still reading this even tho the first few are such a pile of trash lmao)


	8. 008

The parking lot is a boiling pot of people, spilling out of cars and walkways like they haven’t anywhere better to be on a Friday afternoon than the local mall.

Then again, Minghao is also in that same mall, so he’s not really one to talk.

He and Junhui walk side by side, but quiet. The noise from the parking lot is enough to mask the fact that both of them are extremely nervous about this whole situation. 

Inside the mall they can see proof of daylight again and an endless stream of delinquent youth yelling and being generally obnoxious, loud with their laughter as they weave through the people around them, as if the world is truly theirs, if only for this meaningless Friday afternoon. 

Minghao barely sneaks a glance at Junhui. They’re quiet as they walk, and Minghao’s not really sure what Junhui expects him to be. Junhui’s only slightly taller than him and does his best to pay him no mind to Minghao, eyes straight ahead and his melanin-soaked hands fiddling with his expensive car keys. There’s a big, baggy black t-shirt draped over his pronounced shoulders, catching on the sharp edges of his football player body. It’s cuffed at the sleeves, and Minghao might’ve teased him about looking like a lesbian, if the man in question was not his high school bully. The acid wash of his jeans makes his legs seem impossibly longer, and Minghao feels like the laws of physics or something should make that illegal, because he was under the impression only models had legs like that. The way his black hair falls over his face makes it seem so nonchalant, but Minghao knows better than that. Junhui’s image is perfectly constructed, to the point of near perfection, created for the sole purpose of driving everyone around him insane with thoughts of him and his stupid, shit-eating, flawless face. 

“Do you even like Metallica?” Minghao thinks to ask, sceptical of the band on Junhui’s t-shirt and eager to do anything but prolong their awkward walk to the boba store. 

“No. Do you?” Junhui’s nervous. He still doesn’t know if it’s right for him to have asked Minghao to come. Not sure if it was too selfish or him.

“No, not really.” Minghao responds absentmindedly, ignorant enough to take Junhui’s lacklustre tone as his usual asshole fashion, instead of the constant narration going through his head. 

“Why weren’t you in Chinese anyway?” Minghao wonders if they might ever reach their destination before he drops dead from old age, the awkward infiltrating his body every second they walk in silence. It’s not like it’s silent around them, but _they’re_ silent and he can just _feel_ Junhui analysing the awkward too, and he thinks he might die enduring it or at least die trying to stop it. Which is what gives him such courage to talk to the seemingly tranquilized monster beside him.

“Long story.” 

“Weird of you to skip, since we’re here to work on it and all. Well, if it’s so important to you, I mean.” Minghao doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t really trust this normal Junhui. Not when he’s seen the real Junhui, mean and awful and ruthless. As much as he likes to daydream about Junhui actually being a nice person, he knows better than to actually believe that. Maybe Minghao doesn’t have Junhui’s motive completely worked out, but this new persona is enough to make him stay, keep him curious. It gives him confidence. Unlike their first time in chinese class, Minghao’s starting to get used to this confidence thing. He’s in control of it, instead of letting it control him. A calm form of conviction, and he feels all the more powerful with this hidden under his sleeve. 

“Since when are you so interested in my attendance record?” Junhui's conversation with Jeonghan weighs heavy on him. Even _he_ doesn’t know what to make of this outing with Minghao, or why he really arranged this whole thing. He doesn’t know how he’s meant to act around Minghao anymore, if being honest is okay, if giving him whiplash by not putting on his fake persona is okay. Maybe Jeonghan was right. Maybe this is wrong. He might get killed if anyone sees him. There’s not much to lose in being nice to Minghao, like he wants to be. And if he’s to make nice with Minghao (which is kind of a key point of this whole operation), he can’t very well just continue to be an asshole towards him. Because that’s what he’s done so far, and they’re clearly not the best of buddies, so he needs a different approach. 

He doesn’t usually show this side of himself. Just normal, boring, Wen Junhui. Well, at least not since middle school. Maybe Minghao will like this Junhui better. 

Junhui hopes so.

* * *

They finally reach the boba store, Minghao deciding that the mall has certainly never been this big and it has never in his whole stupid life taken him that long to get anywhere. The silence isn’t so awkward, now that they have the menu board to distract themselves with. Minghao wonders if the way Junhui rubs his bicep as he looks over the flavours is because he’s lost in thought or trying make an impression on Minghao. Most probably the former, because Minghao remains unimpressed by this whole ordeal.

“Ready?” Junhui asks. Minghao looks at him with eyes all wide and brown bangs falling over his face, smile soft and skin glowing. It’s in this exact moment Junhui decides this is dumb, because Minghao is in a completely different social class and the fact that he’s using his attractiveness against him is honestly vile. It’s completely rude. Junhui refuses. 

“Yeah.” Minghao nods, daring to hold onto Junhui’s gaze for that second longer. It drives something like excitement inside him, but it’s not exactly excitement, like how he feels when he buys a new game or when he has plans on the weekend. It’s that feeling like Thursday after class when Junhui had asked him to hang out. He doesn’t really know what it is, but he likes it and figures he’d like to keep making Junhui squirm around like that when they make eye contact and he flicks his bangs across his face, if possible. 

“I thought you promised you say more than yeah?” Junhui replies quickly as the smile on his face settles, comfortable and happy. 

“Well, you’d better ask me something worth a better answer than ‘yeah’.” The smirk on Minghao’s settles onto his face as the two step up to the register to order. 

Junhui goes first, and by the time Minghao is halfway through his order, the panic sets in. They’re ordering together, _apparently,_ and one of them is gonna have to pay. For the both of them. It’s not the money that’s the problem (god knows), Junhui just doesn’t want Minghao to read too much into the gesture. If he does pay, that is. He wouldn’t want Minghao to think this is a _date_. From outside of his daze, he can see Minghao start digging through his pockets and before he can really think about it, Junhui is reaching for his own wallet. “No, stop.” Junhui reaches out, holding Minghao’s wrist mere inches from the machine. It’s slender, skin thin and the feel of bones prominent under Junhui’s fingertips. Minghao looks extremely and utterly confused. Why wouldn’t he be. _This isn’t a date._

“Junhui, don’t be stupid. I don’t need the popular kid to be buying me things on top of driving me around.” Minghao slides his arm out of Junhui’s grip and pays for the both of them, leaving Junhui frozen and staring. Minghao barely looks at him as he turns away to get a table, and Junhui is almost too stuck in his daze to follow. Almost. 

“You know, that’s not what I meant by it-” Junhui barely manages to stutter as they sit at their table, on opposite sides of course. 

“Then what _did_ you mean?” Minghao jokingly fires back, flicking his head to maneuver his bangs and keeping a beaming smile at bay through tight lips, though Junhui finds it charming nonetheless. He leans forward onto the table, hands clasped together and eyes holding Junhui’s to him. Junhui doesn’t want to assume much, but this isn’t much like the Xu Minghao he once knew, shoulders hunched over as he walked and eyes always looking down. He’s leaning into Junhui, closing distance between them because _he wants to._

“Just thought I’d repay you for the lift here, that’s all. Even if you _do_ drive like a maniac.” Now Minghao’s smile breaks through, and Junhui thinks it’d be rude to not return it. Not that it’s really up to him, he’s smiling before he knows it. Not as much as Minghao, but it’s something. He can’t help himself.

“You would too if you had a car like that.” 

“And what makes you think I don’t?” Junhui’s heart drops to the floor, pure panic in his stomach at Minghao’s words, but then he’s still all smiles, and Junhui suddenly remembers what it’s like to get to know someone for the first time. 

Minghao’s just joking.

That’s right. He doesn’t know Minghao. They’re not friends, and he’s never taken the time to speak to him. Not properly, like this. Even though they’ve known each other for so long, he still has to start from the start. Find out his favourite colour, favourite movies, hobbies, music, and quite obviously, his sense of humour. 

“I’ve never seen you drive.” Junhui answers simply.

“Well, I imagine you get to school on time. I’m lucky if I make it to homeroom.” Minghao smiles, finally sitting back into his chair and letting himself relax. He’s not all that suspicious of Junhui, right now anyway. Something in his gut tells him Junhui’s genuine, and what else is he to trust but his gut feeling? 

“Yeah well, sometimes the guys like to run or train in the mornings, so, I’m there before most people.” Even though the world continues on around them, Junhui can’t help but think that _this feels so nice._ He’s not one to go out much, and to sit at the mall on a friday afternoon with anyone would be a privilege, but he suspects having Minghao with him makes it that bit better. He loves his friends, but Minghao is so outside of their whole world, it feels refreshing; the conversation feels honest.

“No way. I bet you guys just sit and talk about girls and parties and other football player things. That’s what I would do, if I was some bad-ass football guy.” Minghao’s cheeks bunch up when he smiles, in little pockets right where his cheekbones are, and Junhui decides maybe this is why his smile is so adorable. 

“You mean you’d be an asshole?” Junhui pokes back, comfortable enough now to joke around, as if he’s earned the right to say something like that to Minghao. Which he hasn’t, and he knows it, but Minghao laughs a little nonetheless and Junhui dares to feel giddy thinking he made Minghao laugh.

“Well no, but, I mean-” Now it’s Junhui’s turn to giggle, Minghao’s words a little messy as they tumble quickly from his mouth. 

“Hey! Hear me out! I’m just saying, I mean, doesn’t every high school boy have that star quarterback fantasy? I can’t be the only one. Please. Say you agree. This is embarrassing.” Minghao looks straight into Junhui’s eyes now, giggling and remembering his daydreams of a kind Junhui, a nice one, and as much as he knows he shouldn’t, a small part of him hopes it’s real. Bubble tea Junhui is an extension of Chinese class Junhui. Warm, soft-spoken; nice. It makes him feel comfortable and at ease. Nothing like popular boy Junhui, football player Junhui, perfect Junhui. 

“Isn’t it more embarrassing for me to admit that I wanted to be a quarterback but I’m just some lousy guy on the team?” Junhui finds himself so comfortable, words easy and unfiltered. He’s worried, only a little. That Minghao could turn around and use his words against him somehow, but the Minghao he’s seen so far wouldn’t do that. 

“Well, aren’t you still important or whatever?” Minghao almost feels like he’s interviewing a celebrity, but not because Junhui’s being an ass, he’s actually being surprisingly nice and docile and Minghao can’t say he’s not surprised. It’s hitting him in the face just how different they are, and he never realised he had so many questions about how the other half operates at school.

“I guess.” They call Minghao’s name halfway through Junhui talking and he abandons the boy for a second to get their drinks. He takes a moment, nothing more and nothing less, to let that warm honey feeling course through every inch of him. This is nice. Talking to Minghao is nice. 

“So uh, our project?” Minghao thinks to ask, almost irresponsible enough to not say anything and spend the afternoon just talking to Junhui, now that he’s in such a pleasant state. 

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, let me get my stuff.” Junhui ducks down to search around his bag, hiding his bright red face from the boy in front of him. God dammit, of course he’d forgotten that they were actually here to work on their group project, not sit and chat like 12 year old girls. 

As Junhui turns on his laptop, he can see Minghao’s face barely peeking over the screen, sipping his boba and eyes wandering around the store, wide and curious. Junhui wonders if he’s always been like this, and if Junhui’s really been teasing the same guy he’d come to like over just a few hours. ‘Like’ being the understatement of the century. 

“Should I move? Just so we can both see, I mean.” Minghao tries really hard not to stutter, and by some miracle he doesn’t. He has half a mind to remember the way Junhui’s been to him in every single day leading up to this, and one afternoon of nice Junhui is nowhere near enough to forgive years of mean Junhui. He’s not trying to flirt with Junhui. As much as he likes this, there’s something in his brain that won’t let him see this as anything other than an experiment, to understand Junhui, not just the two hanging out. Even though he knows that’s not the real reason why he agreed to this. 

“Oh, yeah. Of course.” Junhui doesn’t dare to read into it. He hasn’t earned that, and he knows it. He focuses hard on this as Minghao maneuvers himself to sit next to Junhui.

* * *

The afternoon rushes past them, working diligently, conversation lulling and times and picking right back up when either had anything to say. It wasn’t a measured interaction unlike their past, but natural and relaxed. Junhui didn’t think twice to tell Minghao stories as he remembered them, and Minghao didn’t filter his reactions.

It was pleasant, for both parties, though neither would admit it for their separate reasons. 

“Okay, I think if I look at one more character I might go insane. We’re half done anyway, which I’ll bet is better than any other group.” Their boba long finished, Junhui shuts his laptop down, taking the executive decision to end their study date. As much as he didn’t want to, he’d only planned this study thing to suss out Minghao. He had no real interest in doing their project, and he was well and truly sick of it after an hour straight of working on it. The mall had quieted down and boba shop was calmer, quieter, the elevator music playing through the shop speakers easier to hear through the soft chatter of the other people in the store. 

“No way. Our class is full of nerds, I bet we’re the only ones who haven’t finished.” Minghao replies, putting his own things back into his bag. 

“Ugh, I don’t have it in me to write even one more sentence.” Junhui almost groans, sitting back into his chair and earning himself a giggle from Minghao for being so dramatic. Then Junhui has an idea. 

“B-but we can, do this again, if you want.” 

“Oh! Yeah, I mean, if you want to.” Minghao tries to keep his excitement from seeping into his words, and he can’t help but feel like he forced Junhui to ask after complaining they’d be the worst group, but he’s not unhappy enough with the invitation to deny it. He’s not unhappy at all. 

“Yeah. Well, I’ll message you, and we can work out when and where and stuff. Just, reply this time.” Junhui jokes, though he’s kind of serious. Not getting a reply back was a big blow to his ego, and he’s not really sure if he could do the chasing-minghao-out-of-class thing again. 

“Yeah yeah, I will.” Minghao rolls his eyes, smile gentle and hands in his lap. The idea of Junhui messaging him is enough to drive him insane, but knowing that it’s not for a malicious reason makes it even sweeter. Not that he knows that for sure, but he doesn’t really want to think about mean Junhui and ulterior motives to their outside-of-school meetings. Not yet anyway. 

“Why didn’t you? The first time, I mean.” He doesn’t mean to ruin the atmosphere, but Minghao’s face instantly falls anyway and Junhui regrets the words as soon as they come out. He knows, he knows why Minghao didn’t reply. He didn't want to see Junhui. He’s scared of him. It’s selfish of him to make Minghao say it out loud for his sake.

“Do you want me to be honest?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I made my friend read the message, I was too scared. I thought you were gonna beat me up or something, I don’t know. I figured I’d just avoid it if I didn’t reply.” Minghao figures it’s no big secret to either of them that Junhui’s kind of a bully, and he tends to pick on Minghao. It puts this big ugly weight on the both of them, one they’d both been ignoring throughout their time together. It was easier to pretend they had no past as enemies when they were trying to play friends. 

“Oh.” Junhi doesn’t have much to say. He knows he’s awful. He knows he’s done awful things. But now he knows Minghao, and it hurts even more to hear him say that, that he thought Junhui might hurt him. He’s never punched anyone, but Minghao thinking he was capable hurts regardless. 

“Um, I’m sorry-” Junhui starts, words quick and with no plan to his heavy, heavy apology. Was he meant to apologise for everything, or just this instance of him being absolutely awful? God, what was he? 

“Let’s not. Don’t worry about it, we had a good time didn’t we?” Minghao forces this weak smile, and it breaks every single piece of Junhui. Minghao doesn’t want to get into it. He doesn’t want to ruin their afternoon. It’s pathetic of him really, to protect his emotions towards his own tormentor. What an idiot. 

“Yeah. I did. Hey, do you want me to drive you home?” Junhui’s not reluctant to change the subject. The more he can run away from his actions, the better.

“Nah, I think I’ll stick around a little longer.” Minghao has plans with Soonyoung and his friends at karaoke, seeing as Soonyoung was persistent on being the first to hear about Minghao’s not-date. 

“Oh. Okay, well. Thanks, I guess. And I’ll message you, about next time.” Junhui smiles, starting to take a few steps backwards, certain that it’s gonna be hard to part ways with Minghao, unsure of what might happen when they next meet. 

“Yeah. For sure.” Minghao smiles, that pretty, warm feeling persistent in his chest. 

“Bye, Minghao.” Junhui waves, reluctant to turn his back and let Minghao disappear from his sight. 

“Bye, Junhui.” Minghao watches Junhui walk away, until he turns a corner and he’s gone. Minghao dares to smile, just for a second, before he accepts he has feelings for the person he once hated most; Wen Junhui.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **we finally hit 1k !!! guys, i cant begin to tell you how happy that makes me. i have other fics that have done better but this one is truly my baby, and it makes me so happy to see it get some love. thank you so so much to everyone who reads this !!**
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> giving u some light reading for the weekend. hope it makes ur weekend a lil sweeter.
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> I hope everyones excited about svts new comeback!! pls support the boys, stream the mv (and getting closer). if we're being honest i've been writing this while i wait for svt's teasers to drop. i love them So Much yall
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> which also means i've been writing most of this at 1am and i wrote some real garbage. i actually wrote their interaction to be completely different. i wrote the characters completely NOT how i wanted them and pretty much had to start over, but i think generally im happy with the balance of what-the-fuck-are-we-doing and fluff in the chapter.
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> i hope !!! u !! like it !!!! leave any comments u may have, they are ALWAYS the highlight of my day and i can 100% guarantee u no matter how short a comment is it's gonna leave me smiling for hours
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> (if any of u are interested lets be friends on twt !!!! come find me @serenitymyungho and we can scream about comeback teasers together)
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> **thanks for reading, supporting me, and supporting svt !!! lets continue to give them all our love on this new comeback !!**


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